Hello. How is winter going for you? Where I live, it announces itself with a crack of cold wind that blows fiercely across the prairie and into my backyard. The second I step outside I am assaulted by a sudden harsh blast that freezes nose hairs within a minute and stings the fingertips. -35C is normal here during December -March.

My daughter was leaving for New York and we wanted to do a winter photo shoot on the park trails that are a 4 minute walking distance from our house. There had been no time to do this before this day with all my family visiting for Christmas and me cooking endlessly…

So, to account for the weather we bundled up and drove to the trail head and walked briskly down the first path to shoot in front of a tree grove.

Instantly, we felt that we had to hurry as our hands, though fitted with gloves were beginning to sting.

I had brought a candle holder as a prop but I kept telling her to hurry up and hold the darn thing as I could feel my toes tingling.

Her lips were becoming immobile.

My eyelashes donned mini-icicles.

Our breaths became pretty shallow.

I had to take off my glove once or twice to depress the shutter and I cried out a little. Or was it swearing?…

If you have ever experienced this, you’ll know that once the tingling starts, it pretty much moves to downright pain rather quickly. I thought of hacking off my fingers with my teeth.

So…Darn…painful!

After maybe 10 shots we ran back up the embankment to start the truck.

This was the fastest ‘photoshoot’ that I have ever done. For the first time, any shot was “good enough” as returning to warmth was the priority.

Now that she’s back in New York, I won’t get any second opportunities for a winter shoot with her,  but next year I will plan to do this much earlier in the season, say…November where the temperature will only be -18C or so.

I have spent the last 2 weeks pretty much indoors, only venturing out for  groceries. Though the sun is shining today, it is…you guessed it -35C again.

For my outing today, maybe I’ll venture out to the mailbox?