While doing my normal Saturday morning “chores,” which include weekly runs to a variety of stores, I drove by Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapids. Later that date I drove by again, parked, and walked around a bit and photographed. I’d been hoping that there would be a skating area cleared, perhaps with people playing pickup hockey. No luck. But I got some nice images of the snow-covered frozen lake and people ice fishing. The images in the blog post all come from a walkway that offers some nice views of the lake.
To begin, some context. [As always, click on the images for a larger version.]
The walkway here is looking east. There is a watery, swampy area to the left (north) and the lake is to the right (west). Below you can see the lake.
Now, some “features. First, a couple looking to the north. The first is my favorite from the walk. I thought about cropping out the shadow of the walkway railing. That would feature the dead tree coming out of the water, ice, and snow more clearly. I left in the shadow to give a sense of where the picture was taken from. (The “cover” version of the image is cropped.)
Now a telephoto of the utility lines infrastructure and church in the background of the above image.
Taking the walkway further east and then south, looking to the right, into the lake, you can see a closeup of several of the ice fishing shelters and people outside them.
You can see from the images that the light was bright, even when and where the sky had clouded over. The grey-white of the sky and wide snow makes for bright like even when there is no direct sun.
Finally, a couple of images on a walkway to the north, along a street, that lets you see through the swampy area into the lake, and another set of ice fishing shelters. I’m always curious if the fisher folk take their catch home to eat or catch and release. The lake seems a bit brackish to me and I wonder about runoff from heavily fertilized and weed-killer sprayed lawns going into the lake.
There’s nothing fancy or clever in these images. Just evidence of a pretty, clear, crisp, cold day in West Michigan. Enjoy!
No Ordinary Light 
Just curious if you ever do any post processing. The images look a bit overexposed with the snow highlights burning out. Inquiring minds.
I do post-processing. These were well under-exposed in camera. I just took a look in the camera at the histograms. No blown highlights. I process RAW files using Adobe LR or Capture One, depending on what I want to do with the images.
I”d have to look at home in Capture One at the histogram to see if there’s any blown out highlights there. It’s possible,
I processed these images to have a Polaroid inspired color-palette, tonal range, and softness. And I did push the exposure close to the limit. This processing approach may have led to some loss of detail in the snow. I also added a fair bit of grain, which can lead to loss of detail. I started using variations of this look this summer and fall in a series I did on small towns in West Michigan. That look worked for me for the series. I’m now playing with similar variations with winter scenes.
I suppose I’ve been shooting and processing more for mood than for accuracy.