Oak tree in snow

A neighborhood oak tree quietly collecting snow in tonight's late February snowstorm.  This is the property of snowy adherence that I mentioned in the last post.  There was something haunting and reminiscent of Harry Callahan in this scene, I spent several minutes standing in the wet snowfall, trying to understand how to photograph it.  I don't know that I completely succeeded.

Crown Point in snow

I went out for a walk in tonight's snow, which I soon discovered had a unique character unlike any of the snows we've had so far this season.  It was a wet, sticky snow that quickly attached itself to tree branches, the sides of cars, edges and protruberances.  It didn't settle on things so much as it adhered to things.  I didn't get very far out of my neighborhood tonight, but I found this image up on Crown Point.

Broadway Diner by 67

Tony Irons photographing the Broadway Diner with a Pentax 67...during one of the warmer nights last week.  I think Tony has posted a few of his night shots at his blog, www.ironsinternational.com/blog.  As soon as Matt starts a blog, we can look at some of his night shots as well.

Short Street

Finally, a night without snow, or ice, or even a freeze.  The paving bricks on Short Street, freed from weeks of ice and snow, glistened with a dewy warmth.  This could be Columbia's shortest street, coming in at one block in length.  I've always been fascinated with the pavers on Short Street, as well as those on Waugh and on Cherry Street.  Columbia's paved streets are a difficult subject to photographically capture, but when the atmosphere is right, they seem to glow, exuding the kind of mystique and charm that only a street composed of 100 year old paving bricks can exude.

Broadway Maple Tree

An arboreal matriarch (or patriarch) of the neighborhood, this maple tree is surely as old as the stretch of Broadway on which it grows.  Just west of downtown on Broadway. 

KOPN

The red neon of the KOPN radio station on Broadway, during a January snowstorm in Columbia.

Utility Pole in blizzard

I posted a color version of this image on my Missouri-In-Color blog last week...I found the unearthly green of the streetlight a beautiful counterpoint to the pink of the night sky during the snowstorm.  I think I was "borrowing" from a photograph by Luc Delahaye...a night shot of some Russian workers waiting for a bus, softly illuminated by the tungsten blue of a streetlight on a very lonely, snowcovered road.  You can find it here http://andrewconroy.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/luc-delahaye-winterreise/winterresise_1/ or in Delahaye's book, Winterreise, documenting a trip through Russia during the winter of 2000/2001.  As T.S. Eliot said in Sacred Wood, "Immature poets imitate; Mature poets steal."

Lost car

I found this car when I was out in the blizzard last week.  It reminded me of finding a lost, half-buried member of Shackleton's crew, or some similarly lost and mysterious object.

Hitt and Locust

The intersection of Hitt and Locust streets, downtown Columbia, during one of 2011's many snows.  This is a vantage point I have used in the past, back when University Market was on the opposite corner, selling beer and overpriced groceries to people in the neighborhood.  On a snowy night, this view reminds me of something from a Maxim Gorky novel.

Booches on a cold night

Booches, on Ninth Street.

D&H Drugstore, during a blizzard

D&H Drugstore, during the blizzard that swept through Columbia last night.  Bereft of customers and any sign of a parking lot, this reminds me of a Wallace Stevens poem I once read.