As coffee brews in the morning, I find myself doing a quick scan of the windows to see the patterns of ice that have formed in the night. Usually my attention is focused just on the windows, the ice crystals and the slow movement of light across the sky.

This morning, my eyes fell upon the white feather, an item I have photographed many times before.

It sits in a shallow dish on the window sill of my writing nook. Today I noticed that its delicate barbs almost touched the nearby pane. If it had, would it have been frozen as well?

Both infused and illuminated by sunlight, and juxtaposed against the growing blue of the sky and the sparkling crystals of the melting ice, well … the color-filled scene was near magical.

Still, after a while, I found myself switching to black and white on the camera. Just to see what would happen. I’m glad I did.




















