Matthew Stearns Photography – Summitblog

In the nighttime hours, particularly under clear skies and after a freshly fallen snow, the world is changed. The stars and the moon light up the edges of everything covered in virgin snow, drawing attention to details once unseen.

This was most certainly the case while driving Route 16 and while along the trail for my annual Harvest Day hike in Jackson this morning. I was captivated by the glistening world, and intrigued by some of the changes. In Albany, a young lady on one of the giant billboards was transformed from a trendy model peddling a stylish scarf and hat set into a sinister and ominous looking character. Her mascara made her look more dead than alive, and she appeared almost criminal. Along the Doublehead Trail, while cutting a fresh snowshoe path in almost two feet of powder, the individual airborne flecks of ice and snow sparkled like tiny gems by the light of my headlamp. On top of North Doublehead, the transition from light to dark at sunrise today was an definitive sort of example of the difference between twilight and daytime; there was a nearly distinctive line drawn directly on the skyline separating the red and purple of day from dark blue and grey of night.

Today, on Thanksgiving, I am thankful for many things. Among them, I am thankful for light. Not only for light itself, but for its uncanny and magical behavior. It’s mornings like this which reaffirm for me that darkness often isn’t as much a cloak as it is a veil. Rarely is darkness a pure absence of light, and thus it makes an already beautiful world all the more interesting; and when it gives way to light, all the more photograph-worthy.

Thanks for stopping by to visit me here on Thanksgiving day at my New Hampshire Landscape Photography blog; I’ll see you again soon!