snow

An Open Letter to Local News Stations 3, 6, 10, and 29

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15.8" of snow fell during the Great Nor'easter of February 10, 2010

You know what? I’m okay with weather being an imprecise science. I’m even okay with predicting the worst case scenario, because people do need to be prepared just in case.

What I’m not okay with is the weather taking up 3/4 of the newscast for several days beforehand. Really, you can tell me once per newscast that there is snow in the forecast and I will still be able to make the appropriate decisions and preparations.

A QUICK MENTAL CHECKLIST

  • Did we replace that broken shovel? Do we have any ice melt?
  • Maybe I should go buy some lunchmeat so we can make sandwiches at home rather than go out for hoagies on Saturday.
  • Where did I put those D batteries we didn’t use during Hurricane Sandy?

I don’t need 3 weather people talking about the same storm in the same newscast 3 different times; what’s coming, when it’s coming and expected accumulation do not each need their own weatherperson and their own report. I know it’s been warm for the past few winters but 5″-7″ of snow in the Philadelphia area in February isn’t record-breaking news or anything.

Friday morning all 4 local networks went on the air an hour early at 4am to report RAIN. It was actually laughable. Seriously guys, I don’t need reporters on each highway at 4am to report the rain, I’ve got a window and an umbrella, I’m set, thanks.

Snow in February in Philadelphia is not worthy of the time and resources that went into shouting from the rooftops that it was going to snow in Philadelphia in February, the storm even had it’s own graphics package. It seems as though it’s de rigueur these days for the news media to create a panic state rather than just report the news.

Do we really need — OMG! IT’S GOING TO SNOW — several times an hour? What’s wrong with — There’s a nor’easter coming up the coast, which is expected to meet up with cold air from the west, we could get as much as 5″-7″ of snow before it is over — once during the weather’s normal time slot in the newscast? I get it, snow in Philadelphia in February isn’t exactly sexy or man bites dog. I even get that in some small part the weather people are trying to be Paul Revere warning of impending danger but in the end you all just looked like Chicken Little shouting, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” And, believe me when I tell you, you didn’t look like Chicken Little because the forecast changed and the weather took a different track.

It is sort of sickening to think that you’re deliberately scaring people for ratings. You know it’s a crime to stand up in a movie theater and shout FIRE! when there is no fire, because it creates a panic, but yet that’s exactly what the last few days of newscasts felt like.

How about you all go back to reporting the weather and let me decide how worried I should or should not be about the forecast?

Project 52 (Week 5 — The Evolution of Bokeh Snow in Black & White)

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Hey! Welcome to week five of Project 52. I didn’t take many photos this past week so I didn’t have too many to choose from for this week’s post. To tell the truth, I actually posted my favorite photo of the week yesterday. I figured posting the same photo two days in a row was redundant so I thought I’d tell you the story of this less-than-exciting snow photo.

It snowed again last night so I thought I’d try for some nighttime snow photos. We didn’t get much snow, just about a coating, which has sort of been the pattern around here this past week. It’ll snow just enough to make it slippery but not enough to really get any beautiful snow photos. Trust me, I’m not looking for a foot of snow by any means. But if we’re going to have snow can’t we at least get enough to make it look pretty around here?

I didn’t get anything really good last night. In fact most of the photos were downright crappy. The snow was really pretty and glistening but there wasn’t enough of it to really get a good shot. I used flash to capture the falling snow. In fact I was very lazy, I used the night portrait auto setting, which didn’t produce the best photos. I could have and should have stayed out working on taking photos in the shutter priority mode but it was 25 degrees and snowing and I just wasn’t feeling it so I cheated and used an auto mode.

This is the original image I captured, which is okay. I like the warmth of the yellows coming from the street lights, but for the most part it’s just a bland photo of a suburban street in Anytown, USA. I played with it in iPhoto for a while and while playing with the saturation I saw it in black and white and decided to go with it.

I don’t love the end result in black and white anymore than I love the original color image but I think the black and white version has more character and an added depth of field that the color photo lacks. I wish I had the iPhoto settings I used to change the color photo to the black and white version but I hit revert to original before writing them down.

Stay tuned for next week’s photo, which will hopefully be better than this week’s selection.