Scott Thomas, a fellow CNY photographer, hands out assignments every other month on his Views Infinitum blog. The current assignment due tomorrow is Winter (Assignment 23: Winter). Of course when Scott assigned this task we were at the start of a January thaw here in Central NY. But that should not have mattered because what he was actually looking for was what winter means to you, which does not necessarily involve snow.

I have quite a few images that I would classify as winter and would work for this assignment but last night as I headed out to shovel the driveway it finally hit me, what winter means to me is shoveling. There are a few tasks that I actually look forward to around the house. Not because I enjoy them but because they provide me that alone time where my body does the chore without much thought from my brain and my brain wanders through lots of different topics. During the summer mowing the lawn provides me with the same opportunity.

I ran back inside, grabbed the camera and created this image. It is a long exposure that I stepped out of half way through because like I said, my body does the chore but my mind is elsewhere…

Winter Chore
Nikon D5100, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, 28s, f/8, ISO 400