By Scott Shephard

Yesterday I wrote on Facebook that there are only 3 things I like about South Dakota winters: 1)I like the muffled silence that covers the city after a major winter storm 2)I like the contrast of fresh, white snow with the pure blue South Dakota sky and 3)I like that I don’t have to clean bugs off of my truck’s front window for a few months.

But I wasn’t exactly being truthful for, as you may have noticed, I can’t resist going out to take photos of trees covered in frost. Generally, I get about three opportunities a year to do this. Opportunities like the one you see here are ephemeral at best. Wind is hoar frost’s enemy and so it can go away quickly. And for this photo I had about 2 minutes of strong, angular unfiltered light minutes after sunrise before it went up under low clouds. Did I sit and wait patiently for this photo? Or did I get lucky?

I’m not saying because it doesn’t really matter to me.

Mavic 2 Pro Hasselblad L1D-20C 1/160s f/4.5 ISO100 10.26mm (35mm eq:28mm) 5 frame HDR