I haven’t counted the number of sunny days versus dark days in the winter. But I like winter, so maybe that’s why I notice the sunny days more than the gloomy ones, and see winter as a bright and shiny season.

When my cat SamSi was still alive, I would go outside with him to photograph him in the snow. He liked going outside year round.

After the blizzard of February 2015

The kitten I rescued two years ago, Victoria, doesn’t like going outside in the cold. But the sun was shining Sunday, so I had to go out and photograph something.

A different blond in my backyard

I had been trying in vain to do some forced perspective to get a photo of these figures against the icicles hanging from the garage. I gave up and went to finish shoveling the driveway when I noticed these icicles hanging from a dried sedum (a.k.a. stonecrop).

I took this one with my phone, which is better at auto-focusing on small objects than my old Canon PowerShot, but can’t get as high-res.

If I’ve gotten at least five hours of sleep—which I did last night despite Vicky waking me up early—cold weather doesn’t feel cold to me until it’s below zero degrees Fahrenheit (which is around -18 Celsius). Sunday morning it was 17°F ( -8°C) so I was able to sit seiza in the snow and get down on all fours as needed to get these shots. I love the look of the dried flowers encased in ice. Totally worth it.

It wouldn’t be an FFVII post from me without Sephiroth. Though this has more of a fall vibe even with the icicles given how strongly the sun was shining, really bringing out the orange in the dried sedums. Well, manually increasing the warmth of the photo a wee bit might also have something to do with that. Ahaha…

I didn’t mean to lay this post out in the style of Remake (i.e. Sephiroth chasing Cloud). I prefer OG Sephiroth.

This is the shot I had wanted to get back in December, but the sun wasn’t bright enough that day to make the snow sparkle, and there wasn’t enough disturbed-snow-covered-by-undisturbed-snow to create the appearance of treacherous, untraveled terrain.

I like the cave vibe the chiaroscuro creates in this shot

おまけ！〜 Bonus! 〜

Here’s the full shot of Cloud in the sedum, the first photo in this post. I was trying to get the icicles in a graceful arrangement, though it does take some of the attention off Cloud. I increased the saturation a wee bit here, which makes Cloud look better, but takes away some of the wintry vibe since the orange for the dried sedum, as in the Sephiroth photo above, gives more of a fall feel.