Winter is here and that means good things for nature photographers.

When I think of snow, ice and animals, I think of Charles Glatzer. Polar Bears x 4

Premier landscape/wildlife photographer Ian Plant is always good for some true “winter art”. I don’t know where Ian made this desolate, windswept but beautiful sunset, but the second picture came from the Apostle Islands, Lake Superior, Wisconsin

Snow doesn’t have to mean edge to edge whiteness. The great Michael Frye created this classic view of El Capitan in Yosemite N. P., California.

El Capitan by moonlight, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

This next picture originated on 6×17 film and was made by Canadian star photographer Darwin Wiggett. I enjoy the misty, ethereal atmosphere of this image. Atmosphere “can be” the most important aspect of an image.

What better animal to have in a snowy mountain scene than a Snow Leopard. This image might have been made in the Himalayas, and Forzane Torabi is listed as the photographer. It is a very effective pic.

Sometimes it’s not how big you are, but how brave you are. Paul Nicklen made this great shot of a penguin in Antarctica. This image is dripping with mood and atmosphere. The fact that we are looking into the blue, shady side ice form adds even more.

Paul is a Facebook/Google Plus friend of mine and I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing him featured in a national American Express TV commercial as he is followed through the Alaskan wilderness. It culminates in Paul photographing a Brown Bear. Congratulations, it is soooo cool, to see a nature photographer featured in the world of commercial enterprise.

I saved the least spectacular and most humble image of the day for last. It is mine and it was one of last pictures I made with my old Nikon D100. Snow and tree limbs always combine for nice abstractions of a season that is too often interpreted literally. Winter is in and of itself, an abstract.

Those of who are or were outdoor photographers, are incredibly fortunate to reside in a location that has winter. It can be a tough life in the north but oh the opportunities that come with winter. Migrating birds of prey, delicate snowfalls, tiny little cracks in the ice.

However you choose to view winter, grab your cameras, dress warm, and show us what you see.

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I seems as though I have finally angered a couple of subscribers to Earth Images, so much with my non-photography posts, that they have abandoned this blog after many years of subscribing.  I stand by your right to do that, and I am glad that at least I aroused a good bit of passion in you.  I wish you well and appreciate all of those years that you supported Earth Images. We have taken one heck of a journey together.  The world is just getting a bit too serious to confine this blog to only photography.

God Bless,                                                                                                                                                Wayne