Winter On Hawk Mountain
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! This blog post marks a year since I created my new website and started doing monthly blog entries. As I look back, I can see they are not all great ones, but hopefully you've found some of them interesting.
It's winter on Hawk Mountain - at least it appears that way! It doesn't take much snow to turn Hawk Mountain into a winter wonderland. Hawk Mountain is about ten minutes away from my hometown of Hamburg, PA and is a world class sanctuary for hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey. On autumn weekends if the weather conditions are right, you can see hundreds of hawks and other raptors circling and riding the wind thermals at the intersection of the mountain ridges.
These photographs were taken almost two weeks ago, and as I left my house there was no trace of snow anywhere. Just another cold grey 40 degree day in early winter. As I drove north toward Hamburg I saw traces of snow on the ground. By the time I was hiking on the lookout trails on Hawk Mountain it was a completely different story. It was four hours of hiking and photographing where it looked and felt like it was the dead of winter. When I was back home and reviewing the images, it felt like I had traveled far on vacation. It reminds me again that photographs carry this perception of pure documentary truth. But even without digital manipulation, there is the ability to shape the message and tell a story by what you show and how you compose the images.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!