Snowy TreesThe lights still burn on a early morning in Corning's Gaffer District as the year's first snowfall covers the trees leading to Centerway Square

As November gave way to December, a first snowfall blanketed the Finger Lakes region.  Ever since, the waves of periodic winter storms and temperature fluctuations that so characterize this region have begun to ebb and flow like tides in the ocean.  It's during those snowy moments, however, when the air is cool and the clouds are just right that the region comes alive in a winter wonderland.  And now, as nearly all the final leaves of Fall drift away, the trees lay bare and the hillsides transitions to its winter repose, the fallen leaves scattering into the surrounding area acting as bedding for the snowy comforter that will soon envelope the frozen earth.  

That first snowfall was a good first snow, a heavy one where you can feel the power of the united snow against the bottom of your boot and where the snow wipes away from the hood of your car not as individual pieces but as if an iceberg has broke off from the arctic shelf.  Waking up early and heading across the walking bridge that spans the soon to be frozen Chemung River, the lights still burned in Corning's Gaffer District as the snows laid claim to the the trees in Centerway.  Bonded by science and magic, the snows give the once naked trees a renewed sense of their place in the world.  Seemingly without meaning now that their leaves are gone, the trees exist in idyllic purpose, given new life to carry on until the buds of Spring start the cycle again.

For this photo, I used my Neutral Density filter, although there wasn't necessarily anything in the sky that needed slowing down.  Rather, I wanted the extended depth of field of a long exposure.  The perfectly manicured trees carry the viewer towards the Centerway Clock Tower with the almost gas-like lamps guiding the way.  It was a good morning and I look forward to many more like it.