Kozmic Dreams Photos of Wintertime and Christmas

One of my favorite things about Christmastime is decorating the tree, so most of the photographs below show my different trees. I have been decorating my very own tree since I was 14 years old. Before that, I did most of the decorating of my parents' tree. The theme of my tree is always nature and animals. The only exception to this rule is the Mr. and Mrs. Claus that always adorn the top of the tree, along with a few snowman ornaments. The rest of the ornaments are all animals or plants.

As much of an environmentalist as I am, I still love to get a real tree for Christmas. There's nothing like the aroma of a fresh pine tree! Because I think of each tree's sacrifice as a special thing, I even save a small, clear plastic box of needles from every Christmas tree. I make the box of needles into an ornament. Then I hang them on the new tree, so that every year, each past tree is still a part of the following Christmas.

The main thing I love about wintertime in general is making snowmen. While it is rare enough to have good packing snow, it is even rarer that I have time to make a snowman. Most of the ones pictured are from earlier years. I also enjoy photographing icicles and winter scenes.

I thought we got a lot of snow on December 20, 2008, but this snowfall over a few days was even more. Again, I kept track of the camera settings. They were all taken at ISO 160 with different f-stops and shutter speeds.

Shortly before leaving for the Ugly Radio Rebellion concert to celebrate Frank Zappa's birthday, I noticed some interesting frost on the storm door and couldn't resist taking some photos. The brownish ones are without a flash and the others are with a flash.

We got a huge snowfall yesterday (I even got to stay home from school/work!). We haven't gotten this many inches of snow in quite a few years (about 9 inches). Today was sunny and the snow that was piled up on my outdoor table started melting from underneath and sliding off. I took some photos with different camera settings.

Here are a variety of photographs of this year's Christmas tree taken with different camera settings under the same lighting at night on December 13, 2008. This is the first year in quite a while that I didn't use garland as part of the decoration. Also for the first time ever, I used 5 strands of LED lights that perform 16 different effects. Unfortunately, they only came in red, blue and green, so I also used a few strands of multicolored incandescent lights so I would also have yellow and magenta in the mix. The LED lights are underneath most of the branches, so they perform their effects "inside the tree" while the other strands flash on the "outside" creating a multi-layered effect. The star, an antique from the 50's given to me by my grandma, also flashes independently, although I chose all of these photos for the fact that the star was on. I tried to capture the lighting effect with an animation, but nothing compares to seeing it in person.

Today was a partly cloudy day, with bright sun shining through through the clouds rather often. It was melting the icicles on my house, so I decided to photograph them. Today's sky was much bluer and created a completely different mood than my icicle photos from January 26, 2008, even though they were taken in the exact same location. I placed these photographs in sequential order so that you can see the melting process and how its appearance changed from start to finish.

I also decided to try some stop-motion animation by taking photographs 15 seconds apart and stringing them together in Photoshop. I may have even made a fourth movie, but just seconds after taking my last photo for the third movie, it finally broke off and shattered

I also took a few photos of my snowman after 2 days had passed. We also received another dusting of snow. It was quite sunny today, as you can see from the photos. I thought it was funny how he now has eye sockets, thanks to the black paint absorbing the sun's electromagnetic energy and melting the snow!

I haven't built a snowman in over 7 years. Click here to shortcut to my last one. It seems like there is hardly ever any packing snow anymore and on the rare occasions that there is, I am too busy or not home. Today was a Tuesday. When I got home from work, the last thing I wanted to do was be outside, but I had some shoveling to do. I noticed that the snow was perfect packing snow and I was able to roll up a nice ball right in the driveway. So spontaneously, I just decided to make a snowman. This one had to be quick (about 45 minutes) because I really didn't have time to be making a snowman, but I knew that it could be another 7 years before I could again, so I figured I better take the opportunity. Funny thing was, just as I was finishing him up, the snow was no longer packing snow. A drizzly rain had fallen over it and it was too crystallized to work with.

On January 26, 2008, I photographed two icicles on my porch under varying settings. I also took a couple photos of the place where one of the icicle's drippings were landing.

On January 2, 2008, I drove down Hines Drive, bordered by Hines Park on either side. Hines Park is a popular recreational area in Southeastern Michigan. Although about half the normal route (and access to most of my favorite spots) was closed due to the annual festival of lights, I was still able to find some good winter scenes to photograph on the western half of the park closer to Northville. It snowed the night before last and the snow was still settled in the trees due to the cold temperatures (around 24 degrees Fahrenheit).

On January 14th and 15th, 2007, there was a lot of freezing rain. I photographed a few trees and shrubs on these days. The sky was rather dreary though and there wasn't much sun. The flash did cause a neat effect on the ice though.

On January 16th, something even more spectacular happened. When the sun came out, the trees' ice-encased branches glittered. It looked like some kind of fantasy world. I tried to capture some of the effect with my camera, but nothing compares to having seen it in real life.

Christmas 2005

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Here is this year's Christmas tree. I think this is one of the most full trees I've had. It was just recently unwrapped since I got it the day after Thanksgiving and the branches were packed closely together. I didn't even realize it was this wide until I started decorating it. I photographed it using varying shutter speeds. The last two photos were modified in Photoshop.

I love to pack my tree with lights. I put about 10 strands on this tree, all independently flashing. It's one big light show. I wish I could capture the experience better, but you can get an idea of what it's like by watching my movie...

Click here to see a movie of the tree and its flashing light display.

Christmas 2003

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Here is this year's Christmas tree. Brian and I pose for pictures before attending our 10-year high school reunion.

Christmas 2002

Here is a photo of this year's tree during the daylight.

Christmas 2001

Above are two photos of the tree, one at night and one during the day. The next two photos are of a snowman I built in the backyard. The last photo is Sweeties wearing a halo. She passed away in the spring of 2004. My mom used this picture on her Christmas cards during the year of 2001.

Christmas 2000

This was one of my first experiences with digital photography. I had forgotten I took these photographs until I was looking in my backup files for an old picture of Frank and accidentally came across them. They are taken with the free camera I got from joining Earthlink, but some of them really turned out interesting.

Christmas 1999

The second photo is my Japanese maple tree in the front yard. This is the first and only time I have put lights up outside.

Christmas 1998

Darwin and Sweeties

Christmas 1995

I was now in my own home, so this time I have a larger tree displayed in the living room. The other two pictures are some icicles against a crisp winter sky.

Christmas 1992?

Christmas 1990

Here is another tabletop tree. This one is a lot fuller and shapely. Here is a snowman I made in our front yard.

Christmas 1989

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I think this is the first snowman I built all on my own. The second picture is of mother and daughter Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers, Heather O' Halloween and Sweeties Mc Pea. Unfortunately, both are now deceased. The third picture is of the first Christmas tree of my very own. It was in my bedroom at my parents' house. It was such a cute, tiny little tree that it could fit on top of my desk!

Christmas 1980

Here is another of my dad's painted snowmen.

Christmas 1977

Here is one of the first snowmen I participated in building. My dad did most of the work though. He showed me that a snowman could be painted with spraypaint to add color. I've never known anyone else to use this technique.