Two Triptychs

A triptych is basically a series of three something (photos maybe :) that tell a story. A diptych would be a series of two, etc. We were required to create two triptychs for class in anticipation of a final project that must be a series of 5-10 photos that tell a story but that do not contain redundant subject matter or composition. It turns out that this isn't so easy to follow these basic guidelines, even in series of only three. I mulled over a ton of ideas for my triptychs. Some were not in my heart because they were not as much tied to nature as I like: an arm composed of animal, machine, robot. Some were, but were not achievable at temps hovering around -40F: the moon's reflection on water in solid, liquid, and gas forms or my family in silhouette at sunset as we progressed from a family of two to a family of five (dog included). Some of my classmates had neat ideas that are very simple: an apple progressing from whole form to eaten to the core, tangled wires (like fishline, headphones, necklaces) whose abstract form continued from frame to frame, three different colored dog's heads posed identically. One of my ideas was to bring the bounty of fall into winter's preservation by using high bush cranberries.

We broke 6 low temperature records in 7 days last week but I went out every day if only for 5 or 10 minutes, brought my kids out in their best gear, and even drove 2.5 hours with my kids to try to photograph the mountains in the sunrise. It was refreshing to be out when we otherwise would not have been. Photography is not alone. There are so many other hobbies that have people out there at low temps: running sled dogs, biking, cross country skiing, ice carving. This community is full of energetic outdoors people. I wanted to photograph frosty eyelashes and steamy mouths, but it didn't work out exactly as I'd planned. Working with a subject at -40 is not exactly predictable. My fingers froze and I couldn't think but I still think this is nice and conveys "cold:"

The tie to the weather and the sun is what I love about natural light photography. I have seen things during this class that I would not have seen otherwise: the phases of the moon, ice dogs around the sun, the differences between the colorcast of the sun on the snow between early November and late November. There are such drastic differences between each week of winter in the subarctic and noting these changes makes the cold months pass quickly.