As much as I enjoy all the various decorations for Christmas, minus the blowup Santas, I prefer Mother Nature’s glorious winter kaleidoscopes. Even in the dull, dormant winter season, nature offers color displays everywhere. We need to be observant to catch them.
I marvel at the artistry of winter landscapes, with their deep russets and the ubiquitous varieties of browns and grays in meadows of wild grasses and the depths of forests. Where the two meet, prickly reddish briars of last summer’s wild red and black raspberries and shoots of wiry bittersweet color the demarcation.
Even on the coldest December day, the play between shadows and sun on the eastern slopes of the Allegheny Mountains warms my soul. I’m a sucker for the simple, everyday flickers of hope and joy that are there for our enjoyment. Consequently, sunrises and sunsets elevate my spirits the most, especially around the holidays. I learned to watch for any opportunity to photograph the sun rising and setting.
So, as the sun sets at the end of 2023, here is my favorite from this crazy, emotion-driven year.
I chose this photo not because of its spectacular colors but because the image represents all the geographic qualities of where we live in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The picture was taken in mid-November after the harvest.
Agriculture is prominent in Rockingham County, the second-largest county in Virginia. It’s the state’s largest poultry producer, and farmers grow hay, corn and soybeans. Livestock and dairy farms are also prevalent. The fence leads your eye to several farms pictured across this landscape.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the sun is setting behind the Allegheny Mountains, which mark the boundary between Virginia and West Virginia in western Rockingham County.
Fishing under the first quarter moon during the Georgetown Glow holiday lighting.
My wife and I recently enjoyed a few days in Washington, D.C., with our family. It was the first holiday gathering with everyone present since we moved from Ohio to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
When visiting our nation’s capital, expect to walk. Yes, the Metro network of trains and buses gets you to the general area of where you want to be. But walking gets you exactly where you need to go. And together, our family walked and walked.
That enabled me to do some fun street photography, although I couldn’t linger long if I wanted to keep up with the others. So, I took photos as efficiently as possible.
I was impressed by the collage of architectural styles, often standing on the same city block. The following photos are a few of my favorites, from monuments to residences to embassies to commercial buildings.
On DuPont Circle.Beautiful in brick.The Washington Monument at dusk.The U.S. Capitol building at the golden hour.The White House from Lafayette Square.The U.S. Supreme Court.The U.S. Botanic Garden at the U.S. Botanic Garden.Lafayette Square.A bookstore in DuPont Circle.On DuPont Circle.Stunning brick.The lighting of Georgetown Glow.I failed to visit this museum.Brunch.Foggy Bottom Metro stop.The U.S. Capitol building, east entrance.The Library of Congress.The U.S. Capitol.The U.S. Capitol at the U.S. Botanic Gardens.The Lincoln Memorial at the U.S. Botanic Gardens.The Mexican Embassy.On New Hampshire Ave.The Egyptian Embassy.A curious grandson.The Call Your Mother Deli.
As you can see, Washington, D.C., is a photographer’s paradise for street photography.
Ice skaters skate around the holiday light display of Enchant inside the Washington Nationals baseball stadium.
For the first time in seven years, our entire family gathered last week for the holidays in Washington, D.C. Our son, his wife, and toddler flew in from Rochester, New York, while our daughter’s family and my wife and I drove from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to our nation’s capital.
The chilly air didn’t stop us from enjoying the sights and participating in outdoor activities like the one pictured. We ate and laughed much and immensely enjoyed one another’s company. We had a glorious time.
As we celebrated, we didn’t forget the distress of too many global humans amid the blessedness of Christmastime. The African American pastor and theologian Howard Thurman expertly expressed the paradox of the season in the following poem:
A view of the snow-covered West Virginia mountains.
My wife and I spent a wonderful long weekend visiting family and friends in Ohio. With a powerful cold front sweeping across the country, I suspected our return trip might be dicey since we had to travel through several mountain ranges to return to our home in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
To avoid slippery roads, we waited until the warnings and advisories for heavy snow expired before setting out. That still gave us time to arrive home before dark as long as the roads were clear. Fortunately, they were.
The snow appeared as soon as we began to climb in elevation east of Morgantown, West Virginia. The tall, dark, barren trees sprouted from a light snow covering. The beauty would only increase as we progressed southeast.
A snowy scene near Oakland, Maryland.
The highways in Maryland traverse mountains that appear all scrunched together. The effect is that you are riding across the mountaintops without ever descending into deep valleys. There, the storm had frosted entire woodlots with powdered sugar. Inches of snow stuck to the tree branches and trunks and covered the forest floor and adjoining farm fields. It was gorgeous.
I stopped several times for photos. However, we saw numerous scenes without a safe place to pull over. Those images will have to remain pleasant memories.
Please click on the photos to enlarge them.
Since I couldn’t stop along the narrow, winding state route, I chose several county roads for photos. I didn’t have to go far. It was like we had driven into a black-and-white movie from the 1950s. Forboding dark clouds enhance that effect.
We continued our trek south and east into West Virginia. The snowy, panoramic landscape became wide open once we hit Corridor H, U.S. 48. We took advantage of highway overlooks for thrilling shots.
Please click on the photos to enlarge them.
In Maryland and West Virginia, giant windmills swooped their massive blades round and round. Despite their distance from us, the noise shocked me when I exited the vehicle for photos.
The valleys became more expansive, and the mountains steeper as we continued east. As the National Weather Service predicted, areas above 2.000 feet in elevation received the heaviest snow. The lowland had little to no snow at all.
A sunlit mountainside near Baker, West Virginia.
The farther east we traveled, the more frequent the breaks in clouds, which allowed the late afternoon sun to break through. The contrast between the sunlit and shadowed snow created lovely shade and color contrasts.
As we entered our beloved Shenandoah Valley, snow had all but disappeared. Only the higher ridges remained white. The morning photos of friends on social media showed the comeliness of the snowfall in the valley, with the snow-covered old-age mountains as a beautiful backdrop.
Still, we were happy to have seen the snowy sights and thankful for cleared highways, and to be home.
Cattle grazed beneath the snow-covered Allegheny Mountains near Lost City, West Virginia.
I love photography. It keeps me alert for the extraordinary while doing the ordinary. In this case, I was with my wife, her cousin, and her husband, all septuagenarians.
We get together every so often about halfway between our home in Virginia’s lovely Shenandoah Valley and their abode in central North Carolina. Lynchburg is a handy place to meet up, a two-hour drive for each of us.
We like many of the same activities, like playing cards, dominoes, antiques, and birding. We also enjoy casual strolls along city streets and well-marked biking and hiking paths. Lynchburg offers plenty of both.
Since we are not out to set any speed records on our walks, I can wander ahead and find the unusual among the usual rural or urban landscapes. Occasionally, I charge ahead too fast, and the others call me back to see what they have found. Together, we discover much to appreciate, ponder, and enjoy.
Take our most recent excursion, for example. Lynchburg is a city of hills and valleys, with a rich history, old buildings, waterways, sidewalks, cobblestone alleys, and lazy trails often following the winding creeks and the James River. One trail even had an old railroad tunnel, now lighted for bikers and hikers. The city is a paradise for photographers.
We came upon curious subjects to photograph every path we took. Along a creekside trail, we found this textured object. Any guesses? A tire? An alligator’s back? No to both. There’s a hint in the photo.
This is the closeup of an old fallen tree. The trunk was rotting away while its life-protective bark remained.
Not all photographic opportunities were so secretive. Still, using your imagination is critical. This old snag has stood the test of time, and the elements of four seasons have weathered into a once-living art object. Does anyone else conjure an owl flapping its right wing?
Speaking of living, this diminutive plant waved its once-green leaves red for the holiday season that is upon us. It is a volunteer burning bush, likely deposited by a seed-eating bird. There was no missing the bright color among all the trail-side leaf litter.
A short distance away, a competitor vied for attention. This sugar maple sapling shown like the sun on this dismal day. It made us all chuckle.
Not everything was so obvious, however. This photo has a complex combination of both natural and human-made actions.
Any idea what this abstract consists of? Look close. What’s on the left side? You are halfway home if you said a rock outcropping leached with calcium-laden groundwater. The right section is an old drainpipe. Some wannabe artists eliminated the plain rusty look by adding some pretty red and blue with a meaning. Those colors covered up some previous graffiti in faded white.
That pipe was a hint for us. The city lay just around the corner. We soon found this intriguing old set of double doors in a two-story brick building, likely once a warehouse during the railroad’s heyday. It faced the James River. The nearby trail was once a rail line.
A few steps away was a nearly block-long mosaic timeline of the history of Lynchburg. The blight of slavery was front and center. It’s an incredible piece of artwork often blocked by parked cars. This photo shows the intricate detail needed to tell the town’s story. I couldn’t imagine the time and effort it took to create this masterpiece.
We headed to the Amtrak train station away from Old Town. The building was magnificently reconstructed and expanded to hold city offices that had nothing to do with trains. We had a look around and came across some interesting finds.
An old luggage hand cart parked against the sturdy brick building caught my eye. No longer used, it can’t help but take train passengers and visitors back in time.
Across the street, an abandoned building seemed frozen in time. Dozens of solar bobbleheads danced behind a window in the late autumn sun. It was a curious collection that seemed abandoned, left to survive without human help.
This wasn’t our first rendezvous in Lynchburg with our friends. Given all there is to do, see, and photograph, it won’t be our last.
Roadkill Crossing 
You must be logged in to post a comment.