Abstract Winter

I enjoy winter, but it usually takes the first big snow for me to remember. In the weeks leading up to Daylight Saving Time specifically, I start to dread the dark, cold, and challenges of the season. This year I’ve been focused on finding winter joy if only because it seems wasteful to dread a quarter (or more...) of the year.

A photography habit I’ve embraced this winter is trying to take abstract photos in order to better see the unique beauty that settles over this part of the world. The multitude of textures snow and ice can form and all the ways they catch the light; the colors that can be painted across endless white canvases; diffuse light most days broken up by (very infrequent) brilliant sunlight.

I haven’t taken art theory or history classes so don’t quote me on any of this, but what I find appealing about "abstract” photos is the experience of detaching from reality. They work best when they manage to be abstract without being intentionally vague or boring. I really hope I’ve avoided boring.

My efforts to embrace winter have been really leveled up thanks to the book How to Winter by Kari Leibowitz. There is a passage where she describes a Nordic afternoon where she came to appreciate the particular beauty of winter.

The flat expanse was a marvel. The sun hung low in the sky—it was after two p.m., almost sunset—a brilliant, tangerine orb setting the horizon aflame. Where the sky met the sea, a saffron glow gave way to the faintest line of green, then tapered from periwinkle to a richer, deeper azure. Lines crisscrossed the snow that lay upon the ice…In some ways it was a simple landscape: level, continuous. Snow on ice. Setting sun. Trees in the distance. But by turning our powers of attention to the scene before us, wonders appeared. The snow glinted and glimmered, and where the sun hit it, it sparkled. Kick a bit of the fluff into the air and the powdery crystals exploded into shimmering fairy dust. Use your foot or a gloved hand to sweep it away: notice how the ice is bumpy, its surface closer to sandpaper than glass…Up above, a single, wispy cloud was painted pink by the setting sun, the only one of its color against the orange-yellow-blue sky. In front of the line of trees on an island across the way, the fog created a strange effect, a thin gray whisper of smoke suspended, perfectly horizontal, slashing a line against the dark woodland.

Kari Leibowitz, PhD, in How to Winter

Cannot recommend that book enough. Not sure I capture the scope of scene she describes, but that way of thinking is what I’ve been leaning into.

A secondary benefit of focusing on abstract photos this winter has been frequency. I’m shooting more frequently than ever because it’s been easy to find small moments that excite me and fit the bill for this project. Plenty of the photos in this newsletter were taken in my yard or within walking distance of my house. That’s a win I feel really proud of.

When I set out to publish this monthly I figured I’d write a paragraph or two and include five photos, so thank you indulging all of this.

Taking photos of snow drifts and ice sheets not the thing to get you through the winter? Maybe you’ll find some icy inspiration in the zine I made with my friend Claire Collins. It’s a collection of cold weather activities, rituals, habits, and more that our friends and family use to embrace the season and shrug off the blue.

Wow, reading all the way to the end? You’re a winter warrior and a true friend. See you out there!