Just about the only thing I seem to photograph these days is water. We are still waiting for proper snow (half of what we got on Monday is now gone) so the scenery is not looking photogenic by any means – unless grey and dreary is your cup of tea, that is. So once again, I drove to Österhocklan and expected to see even more ice than last weekend, and got it. It was a sunny day and the sun was shining on the creek, but instead of lifting up the scenery it just made it worse (for me, anyway). The contrast between the dark water and sunlit snow is a nightmare to handle, so I didn’t even try, just looked for the shaded spots and/or waited for a moment for the sun to disappear behind the trees. And when I found a subject, on with the B/G filter and colorise. At least I’m finally getting value for money with the filter… I tried with the normal polariser as well, but there really is such a thing as too much polarisation – the contrast was once again too much between the snow and the water. Since the B/G filter doesn’t remove the glare like the normal polariser does (it just colours it), the contrast is much easier to handle. It’s a fair question to ask why I insist on using a polariser at all, and I don’t really have any reasonable answer. I just simply don’t like glare, unless it contributes to the image. And I rarely think glare contributes to the image. To be honest, I think I’m close to over-using polarisers, so I will have to make a concious effort to cut back a little. But as long as we don’t have a lot of snow, my only consolation is playing with the B/G filter!

It was a cold morning, not cold by normal January standards but cold by the winter 06/07 standards. -9 degrees centigrade down by the creek. I loved it!