Snow Fall in Yetholme

Having grown up in Oberon, one of the things I do miss is seeing a half decent snow fall. Yes, there is the freezing hands, cold winds, soaked clothes, but standing in a middle of a countryside with nothing more than the breeze and the eerie silence as the snow is falling is amazing.

A cold snap hit near the end of winter, and reports were that there was half decent snow falls in Yetholme, 15 minutes east of Bathurst. Yetholme is a small township which is one of two high points along the Great Western Highway, with regular falls of snow during winter.

With the family packed in the car, we headed off and found some nice, deep snow up near a forest called Mount Homer. The following images are from our quick visit...

Before the cold set in....

I walked along the dirt (mud) road for a short distance and noticed alot of emu footprints in the snow. I tried to capture the line of prints along a fence line, but perhaps not exactly how I wanted it. But it did open a new project idea for me to take a number of images of native animal foot prints in each of the extremes of Australia...if I could find some in mud and sand too, it might look quite good.

I always find contrasts interesting, especially the balance of snow against an Australian gum leaf. With the first image, it is in its original format. The second, a black and white - recoloured image. 

 A similar concept with that of the gum leaf. I went with trying to obtain the texture of the bark and snow, and then highlight the gum leaf. Not sure if this really turned out, but could imagine it as a desktop photo on my computer.

 The next three images are also the contrast of snow and greenery. I quite like how these turned out.

..and, ofcourse, I can't have photos with some sort of panoramic imagery. I like the third image perhaps moreso than the other two.

Located near where we stopped was an old cattle ramp, and on the corner of this were large posts which had an odd orange dusting on the timber. Not knowing what I could do with it, I took one photo, and then did some manipulation afterwards. Not sure if the results really stand out, but the original image is quite different to what I have found before.