Winter's Last Snow

March 18, 2005. White Oak Leaves in Snow
It was late winter, nearly a year ago, and the snow had already melted away in the valley that I call home. It was a foggy day, and I was hoping to catch some shots of fog hovering over a nearby pond. But the pond was up on the hillside, and the fog had already disappeared from up there--blown away or something. So instead, I turned my attention to the ground and found some beautiful frost-covered leaves. And, in cooler areas shaded by rhododendrons (an evergreen that keeps its leaves during the winter), I found scattered patches of winter's snow.
I was especially attracted to snowy patches with white oak leaves because I love the leaves' curved and well-defined edges. Oak leaves are almost "leathery." They stay thick and strong under winter's blanket of snow, not decomposing like maple leaves, basswood leaves, and beach leaves, for example, which become flimsy and paper thin. Oak leaves stay intact due to their high level of tannins that act like a preservative, dramatically slowing their rate of decay.
In any case, here is one of the first shots that I framed on that late winter walk. In retrospect, I would have liked to get even closer to provide a better view of the texture of the frost on the surface and edge of one of the leaves. So, with that idea in mind, and to help me think about how I might frame future shots, I did a "digital" zoom, of sorts (below) and cropped out most of the photo, just keeping one small part near the center.