The upside of having a nasty head cold and being bed-bound (I’m on the mend) is that I can concentrate and focus on things I usually wouldn’t have time to focus on.

Today, I spent some hard hours working on the new layered photo editing process introduced late last year by Lightroom, my newly favorite photo editing program.

I can’t lie, this is difficult, challenging, and exhausting work, made a little harder by the antihistamines I’ve been taking to stop sneezing.

But I can’t complain; I loved every minute of it and was thrilled with the outcome.

Yesterday, on my afternoon photo hunt, I took a beautiful black and white photo of a windy and icy hillside in the afternoon side. The image embodied cold and highlighted the beauty of what I call the winter pasture.

This work

I miss the color and light of Spring, but I love the contrast and emotion of winter; it has its unique beauty I would dearly miss if I were not here. Being cold keeps me on my toes. And I am flirting with hypothermia.

The effect created a more profound, more prosperous, almost Siberian winter photo painting. None of the objects in the picture were changed, just the colors and exposures.

The new software enables me to “layer” or work on one part of a photo without affecting all of the images. It can get complex and detailed, but it is worth it, at least to me.

I took this photo and made (electronically brushed) the white whiter, the pine trees greener, and the winter sun twice as powerful and dramatic. It’s the same image, but re-imagined as a photo painting, has a different emotional power that fuses different genres and makes good use of both.

Photography is being liberated, and so is my understanding of it.

I will be honest; this is one of the most challenging creative challenges I can remember and the most rewarding. I am very grateful to Andrew, my young tutor, and photo editing mentor. I might have amounted to something if I had known teachers like him.