It’s been a strange winter here in Minnesota. The ground should be covered with snow but it has been mostly bare since before Christmas. Temperatures in January ranged from days that didn’t get above zero to a day with a record high of 55 degrees. It makes winter photography a bit challenging. The bare frozen ground isn’t particularly appealing. But on the bright side one can still go for a good hike when it isn’t too terribly cold.

Recently I went with my brother and a friend for a hike in John A. Latsch State Park near Winona, Minnesota. It’s named after a man who was a very generous philanthropist and whose fascinating story can be found here if you’re interested. The park sits along the banks of the Mississippi River and the one trail leads to the top of a bluff that provides a panoramic view of the river. As you can see from the photos the climb is up a set of 592 steep wooden steps. It’s a good climb and a good workout.

The view from the top makes the climb worthwhile

But, again, the lack of snow and dead vegetation is kind of drab. But I did find the patterns in the frozen river interesting as in the example below.

As I was taking these pictures I had pattern making in mind. Some years ago while experimenting with Photoshop I started getting into making repeating patterns. Many of these are displayed in my Spoonflower shop and can be purchase as fabric and other home decor items. Later, at home, I took a portion of the above photo and joined mirror images to make a kaleidoscope effect as seen below.

Somewhat interesting but also somewhat boring and cliche. So I took the original portion from the photo and applied the Photoshop liquify filter. I used a brush and smeared the pattern around for a bit and remade the kaleidoscope effect.

I found this to be much more interesting. This is the pattern that it makes.

I kind of like it so I uploaded it to my Spoonflower shop. If you want to see how it looks on fabric and other home decor items click here.

So, I guess the bottom line is even when the landscape is a bit drab one can still find ways to be creative with photography and, if not, it can still be an enjoyable walk in the woods.