first snow at St.Petersburg (visual story - 15 foto)

Hi, hiveans. I share a little exclusive today. The snow isnt a rare stuff of course... but it is exclusive cause it is an ephemera :)

So, our city had the 1st snowdrop yesterday. I missed the exact time when it happened, i.e. I watched in my window the mighty snow blizzard that suddenly painted all surfaces white but can not go out. Later I managed to go out for an hour evening walk and ventured into some night photography. Cause the snow is an ephemera thing in our climate, and the 1st drop do not last long, it can melt in hours, leaving just wet asphalt and muddy paddles. So, I made my best and nailed some scenes. I even have such a rare trophey as snowman! Infants in the yards were excited to see this snow too, they do not have an opportunity to play with it on a regular basis, its such a rara avis nowadays...

Nice to see the snowblower vehicles are already on duty at the streets! seems, the municipal authorities have prepared to meet winter this time, that they will have something to remove the snow and clean the roads with... There is a hope for a good result instead of, as always, "Oh shit! the winter has come all of a sudden!"

This is the yard of a residential building I visit quite frequently (here I took the pictures of a playing ground being restricted under lockdown back order back in April). I had a business here this evening as well, and - luckily - this site was a well-lit with a nice day-light lanterns... you may even think it happened in the daytime? No, its 8 AM!

The place turned out to be lively: the parents took their children for an evening walk, and the children saw snow - the first snow in a year! - and pounced on him like hungry animals. I did not catch the moment when this family of snowmen was born - but I photographed the moment of the "selfie" of the creator next to his creation.

A funny moment: the baby is photographed by her mother, and her eye contact happened not with her, but with me. It is such a small nuance that enlivens the whole picture, unfolds it into another dimension, adds value to the image.

Here is a cropped close-up of the same picture.

There was almost no snow left near the playing ground - children have used all of it! I heard the baby on the left was complainin about that, I helped her (brought a handful of snow. Give and take, right? I took a few pictures, she served me as a model, so I gave back some snow and wished good luck).

Same playground with no little habitants - feel the difference: no intresting plots to capture at all. Human is the measure of all things, indeed!

I had to use 1/10, 1/8 and even 1/6 timings, so, a lot of pictures turned pout blurry, like this. So I gave up on shooting the children playing snowballs very soon, and holstered the camera.

My next stop happened a few districts away, at the shopping mall location.

The city already have been decorated with Christmas trees - after November, 12 they were spotted in various districts.

I was attracted by the contrast of this fresh green grass, surviving the harsh environment.. "the winter is coming!" (c) by Netflix, you know... nowdays one simply cannot use this phrasing without doing the copyright infringement, haha

I noticed a nice flowers pod covered with fresh snow, located at the sideway of the broad well-lit avenue, it promised me delicious bokeh... and I was not disenchanted with results.

This is heather. It looks better with bokeh than without it. I stuck at this flower pod for, like, 6-7 minutes doing numeros takes of bokeh, looking all the same beautiful. maybe it is a subject for a separate post, so let me round up here.

Hope you enjoyed my visuals! Lets see how much creating original content is valued here, is it worth spending a few hours of my lifetime at retouching and color-correcting. See you next time.

location:	St.Petersburg, Russia	November 2020	street lamps lighting
camera/lens:	Canon 5D	Sigma 50mm 1.4	raw-conv.
f2.2	t 1/20	ISO 640	+ x-processing