I took my camera along on my early morning walk today, thinking specifically of this scene when I set out. I saw a very similar scene here yesterday morning, and with the heavier snow today I knew it would make an interesting shot. The heavy cloud cover meant it was darker than usual for this time of year, but the noise introduced by shooting at ISO 6400 added to the charm of the shot. This was an odd storm. It snowed pretty hard all day yesterday, but none of it stuck. We were supposed to get about five inches overnight, but the light dusting you see here is all that stayed on the ground. It snowed like heck all day today, and when I got home from work there was less than an inch on the ground. Hey, don't get me wrong, I'll take it! It's just a very strange phenomenon. To make it interesting, areas less than 10-miles from me were reporting between 18 and 20 inches of snow. I don't know what put that protective bubble over our area, but I'm not complaining.
Post processing started with a low contrast filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted the color sensitivity sliders to improve the brightness of the lights. I then adjusted adaptive exposure, regions, boost black, boost white, contrast, and protect highlights. A levels adjustment and a sepia photo filter were added in PSE.
Lovely shot, though