The Right Place at the Right Time – Two Early Winter Surprises

We’re taking a break from the Dead Presidents Quest for a month.  The next anniversary is June 1, so the month of May is free for other topics.  Long-time colleague and friend Bill Coleman [also a blogger but on more serious issues like the survival of the planet] recently lamented the absence of natural scenes and landscape images in my posts.  So Bill, this one’s for you.

I apologize in advance for those of you still stinging from the worst winter in recent memory. No matter how beautiful, scenes of any snow may be too much to bear.

The first ‘right place / right time’ is Cades Cove inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  It’s the less natural of the parks attractions...being a preserved 19^th century settlement.

We were there in 1977 on a Thanksgiving visit with dear friends, Jeff and Barb.  We were tight in grad school.  Jeff and I did our Master’s thesis research in the same Wisconsin marsh and  after he got his doctorate, he worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  Visiting them in Knoxville always included trips to the park.

Late November that year brought some precipitation to the higher elevations in the Smokies...or maybe the cold and low clouds just frosted everything near the top of the mountain.  We were there on a somewhat overcast day and my favorite shot is this muted scene.  I like the picture for its simplicity and narrow color palette.  Though it may be more a function of the cheap enlargement from the original slide, the framed 8 x 10 on the wall looks like a water color painting, especially with the birch tree accents in the foreground.

 

Early Frost, Cades Cove, TN (November 1977)

I believe it qualifies as a RP/RT entry because I had not seen the Smokies snow-capped like this before.  There can be lots of snow at all levels or no snow anywhere.  Frosty ice rarely lasts long.  A clear, bright sky would have changed the scene.  More overcast and we might not see the icy, accented ridge in the back.

The second ‘right place’ was in Vermont.  In 1987, Ray and Bev joined us on a great vacation to Nova Scotia.  This was during the time we lived in New Orleans.  A New Orleans summer makes you want to schedule vacation escapes to cooler parts of the world and we often bugged out after August, when the rest of the continent begins to cool.

In late September, we flew to Boston and rented a car to drive through the famous, fabulous New England fall before boarding a ferry from Portsmouth, Maine to Nova Scotia.  On the day we had to drive from Burlington, Vermont to the coast of Maine to catch the ferry, the weather gods decided that if we were trying to escape summer, why not dial up the next season.  While the leaves were still on the trees, a few inches of snow fell. 

Early Snow near Burlington, VT (September 1987)

I had to pull over and try to capture the scene below.  Again, the falling snow in the air and whitening ground mutes the colors but the trees still full of leaves add warmth to the image.  Also, snow in the air allows the picture to be less than tack sharp...that and the loss of quality that comes from scanning an old 2x2 transparency.  I think it’s okay for a photograph to resemble an impressionist painting.

Early Snow in Vermont (September 1987)

Again, I could have been anywhere on this autumn day.  I could have been warm and comfy inside, instead of hightailing it across three states in lousy driving conditions so we wouldn’t miss the ferry.  In the 27 years since, I have not seen as good a view of blended autumn and winter elements in one scene.  It was good fortune to be in the right place at the right time...with a camera.