Is That a Snow Tower You're Making, or....?

Central Park in the Snow, 2010

I’ve been to New York in all kind of weather. I’ve been there for hurricanes and on weekends when it was almost 70F one day and snowing the next. I almost got stuck in Brooklyn a couple of winters ago during a blizzard.

I’ve photographed the city in the snow before, too. But on our recent weekend trip I wanted to shoot Central Park in the snow again.

The sidewalks were partially clean. Parents were standing by smiling as little kids rode their sleds and saucers down slippery hills. Older kids were doing foolish tricks on the rockier hills (making me happy that I never had an adolescent son).

Finally we came upon one scene that I thought might lend itself to a wonderfully colorful landscape photograph. In my mind’s eye I imagined it as a contemporary interpretation of Pieter Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow.

In the distance, boys atop a hill were building a giant tower out of snow. Kids were sledding towards me down the hill. In the foreground more kids in brightly colorful parkas were dragging sleds back up the hill.

It really was a very nice composition. The trees were leaning in to provide a wonderful natural frame to the scene. But the lens I had on the camera wasn’t adequate for framing the scene. It took me a little while, but I finally stepped off the sidewalk and trudged through the slushy snow to get to a place where I could frame the picture as I wanted.

I’m not going to show you that picture, though, because for all the composition and the color and framing of the trees, it turns out the “tower” the boys on the top of the hill were making out of snow, the focal point of the picture, was instead a six foot tall penis. Now, I’m not a prude. I had a good laugh. I wasn’t the only person photographing what I thought was a tower. But I think even Pieter Bruegel the Elder would have opted to move on, as I did.

So instead, here are a couple of cute bunny rabbits, including one with a sure-fire Dick Cheney sneer.

Dick & W, 2010