Tis the Season
09 December 2014 -- 343/365
North Providence, Rhode Island
Yes, it's another safety shot today. Not only am I still not feeling well, but by noon we were having torrential downpours and I had no desire to go outside for my photo. The reason my crampons caught my attention, though, is because of all the black ice on the roads before sunrise today when I went for my daily walk. It felt like the roads had been groomed by a Zamboni. If I'd known ahead of time, I'd have worn my microspikes.
For those that don't recognize them, these are crampons. They're used for winter hiking on thick ice. It's been a while since I've hiked anyplace that required full 12-point crampons, though. Once "Microspikes" became popular, crampons were only needed for the more extreme hikes. There's still nothing that tops that feel and sound of crampons crunching along on a steep, icy slope.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders, adaptive exposure, regions, contrast, boost black, and boost white. A levels adjustment was added in PSE.
These look like some form of torture devices! Pretty cool though. I live in an area that sees snow once every 25 years, so I would have never known what these were if you hadn't said. Nice shot.
December 9th, 2014
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