OK, so I may be a glass half empty kind of person, but all the same. The weight of expectation being placed on Obama, the sense of uncritical relief that a discredited, right-wing conservative executive is finally leaving, the notion that the new bod is a great communicator, who has also brought together a collaboration of many different talents, the use of the family to help with the message, the sloganising - they all remind me of someone else.
The parallels aren’t exact, of course, but where we now have the Bob the Builderesque “Yes We Can” we once had “Things Can Only Get Better”. Just as with Blair, people are projecting all of their hopes on Obama, in reaction to his predecessor. There is a desire for radical change being invested in a politician who I suspect is profoundly uninterested, at heart, in the concept.
The only direction left to the new President is down; he will disappoint. Not all of the time, not everybody, and not every day. But he will disappoint.
Like I said, glass half empty.
One of the things about the snowstorm, is that some shots are very clear, and the snow itself delineates objects (here, perhaps unsurpisingly, a tree) and makes them stand out more clearly.
In others, the falling flakes may well get in the way a little. I love the effect of the snow and sodium lights in these images:
I spent some time looking out at a set of gardens and the snow humped over the fences, trees and bushes:
Some of the shots appear almost black-and-white; they aren't, but the snow plus the night tend to bleach out the colours:
Back in the street, the snow storm had become far more intense...
This is the birch I photographed in the Summer:
...and back to gardens.
