Today, more snow, it seems to have been snowing since November. We are used to hard winters, but this one was especially draining, as well as beautiful and challenging.If there is a single image in my mind for this winter, it would be Maria walking through a whiteout with a shovel, our trees and chairs and wind chimes outlined in the snow.

I’ve seen it countless times, Maria usually gets out into the snow before me, and tries to get the shoveling done before I get to it. She is fast and strong, hard to keep up with. But it is a beautiful image. The snow plays havoc with my art lenses, which have to be set manually for each photograph.

Still, the camera seems to find what I need it to find, and this photograph, overexposed in very white light, was actually the picture I hoped for. It is the image of winter that exists in my head, almost precisely. Sometimes the camera seems to know what I want, and finds it.