The march Nor'easter and the old Stone Mill
The snow storm predicted to hit the city today was expected to be the worst one of the entire winter, and the second big storm to hit the city this month. With snow expected to reach above 10 inches or more the further up the city you got, there was potential for a lot of white wintery scenic shots out for the taking if you were brave enough to venture out into it, which the city was imploring its residents NOT to do.
But I was scheduled to be off today, and with the shortage of winter scenes in my scenic gallery these last 2 or 3 years, I wasn’t going to sit home on one of the rare times I was off and miss out on the opportunity to add some nice winter scenes to my collection.
The snow wasn’t supposed to start until around noon or so, and I planned from the night before where my nicest opportunities may lie. Having been thoroughly disappointed with my trip the last snow storm to the Brooklyn botanical gardens - much of it was corded off for renovations and improvements, and a large chunk of the rest was closed off for the winter, (all quite understandable), but from a photo opportunity standpoint it was a wasted trip.
I wanted to go to Wave Hill in Riverdale, and with the snow up north supposed to be the heaviest, shots of pines covered in snow with the Palisades in the background sounded very very enticing to me. But checking their website, they announced the gardens was going to be closed due to the expected enormity of the storm. Oh well.
My next choice was the Bronx botanical gardens, of which like the Brooklyn botanical gardens, I’m also a member. Their website didn’t say they were going to be opened or closed, but I packed my gear up before going to bed planning to go there anyway and would change my plans if necessary when checking with them again in the morning.
Seeing the message in the morning for all their employees to come in because they were going to open, I slung my gear on my back and headed up the hill to catch a bus to the ferry. All throughout my trip on the boat, subway and metro north I formulated in my mind the places I intended to stop at once the snow finally started falling in the afternoon.
New spring flowers erupting out of the ground sprinkled with freshly fallen snow was high on my list, and there were several places I planned to search for them. Much of the grounds were closed for the winter, but I still found two good places with flowers sprung up in a manner that made for fine photographic subjects, and even better if sprinkled with snow. Add to that another two or three other spots that would look quite nice under a fresh blanket of snow, and my agenda was set.
However at the moment there wasn’t a speck of snow on the ground, and lots of time to kill. So I decided to take in the orchid show in the Haupt Conservatory while I waited an expected hour or so for the white stuff to start falling from the heavens onto my subjects. Unfortunately I foiled my own plans by getting too wrapped up in the flowers there, even after I finally found an unfogged window that allowed me to see that the snow was finally falling.
It took the comments from one of the members of the team at ESPN, (as I was listening to their sports show at the time on my portable radio), who made the remark that the snow was all of a sudden coming down in buckets out there. Looking out a window, he was right. Better pack up my gear and get out there pronto, I told myself.
As I left the exhibit and stepped out into the heart of the near blizzard conditions I saw how much snow had accumulated on the ground already, and rushed to the flower beds. But when I got there, all the flowers were completely hidden in a deep and ever growing mountain of snow. Should I not have expected this? I'm so dumb....
So then I decided to double back and head toward the giant clock near the gift shop as it was to be the feature element in a scenic shot I planned there. As I made my way there I grabbed a few shots along the way that looked pretty nice in this lighting and falling snow. Though in order to do so I had to open my bag to pull out my full framed camera and one of my wide angle lenses, filling my camera bag with snow in the process. Not the smartest idea I ever had.
Even with both cameras under a protective plastic covering for rain and snow, I still had to subject them to the elements if I wanted to switch to a different lens than what was attached to them at the time.
As I scooped out chunks of falling snow from some of the compartments of my open camera bag I made a note to myself, that if I’m ever going out knowing I’m going to shoot in conditions like this again, I’m leaving any of my marvelous prime lenses home and only bring two of my most versatile zooms with me instead. That way I'd then have one on a camera around my neck and the other on my hip attached to my spider holster and forget the rest. Trying to change a lens in this mess even when the wind wasn’t billowing was an exorcise in futility at best, and real bad news for my camera if snow ended up inside it as I swapped out lenses. (The weathermen said this storm was going to be a real doozy and they weren’t kidding).
I guessed my 24mm would be the most ideal option for whatever scenes I was likely to want to shoot most often in this storm, and switched to that permanently, as I wasn’t going to tempt fate twice with snow getting inside one of my cameras.
After I grabbed a few shots along Perennial Garden Way, I headed towards the giant clock by the reflecting pool for that shot that was sure to make my trip up here to the Bronx in all this snow worth my time and effort, and it would have been had I gotten to it ten minutes before a pair of workers took to clearing the pristine blanket of snow around the reflecting pool behind the clock with their snow plows. Ah another shot bit the dust.
So I headed for the last spot on my agenda. A delightful looking group of what looked to be birch like trees, with wonderfully colorful plants that had yellow stems to the left of the trees and more plants with red stems to their right. The scene would look delightfully colorful with the red and yellow plants set off by the white birch trees and fresh snow on the ground. But when I got there the whole scene was solid white from the massive snow fall. Would have been great if I had gotten there a half an hour earlier. Well got no one to blame for this but myself.
So with options run out, and not one really decent shot captured the whole day, I tried to think of one place not likely to disappoint while using my 24mm no matter how much snow had fallen. I guessed it had to be the old Stone Mill. Now that was going to be one gruesome hike in this storm with all that gear slung over my back, but turning around and heading for the Metro North station with what sorrowful images I had grabbed thus far sounded a lot worse, so I looked up to get my bearings and started walking towards Stone Mill road.
When I got to the overlook that lay in front of the Old Mill the scene appeared just as charming as I imaged it would in all this falling snow, and I grabbed a dozen shots or so at various shutter speeds and apertures, not sure which ones if any would come out best, as I couldn't see anything on my back screen in this storm.
With snow coating the protective slip that was covering my camera, viewing my rear screen was impossible. And when I lifted the covering up to view the screen, the snow and my breath fogged the screen up anyway. So finally I called it quits and packed up my gear and headed for the exit, hoping that one of these shots would make me glad I decided to trek all the way up to the Bronx in this storm today.
