Irony and the Mailbox

I was originally going call this post something like, “Brr….It’s Cold Outside”.  That is what I was thinking about yesterday morning when I was outside taking pictures of the frost on our mailbox.  So that is where I will start.  It’s been cold here, so I was hoping to create a picture that would express that.  Here is what I started with:

ISO 125 50mm 0ev f/5.6 0.5s

This first version I shot using the tungsten white balance setting on my camera, I think the blue tint just adds to the cold feel of the picture.  The other white balance settings just didn’t thrill me as much.  I was also using my tripod, so that I could lower my ISO and get as still of an image as possible.  I did not use my remote shutter in this case, because that felt like a bit of overkill.  I edited this version a bit in Aperture.  I did some cropping and sharpening.

Here is my second version:

ISO 100 50mm (-1,0,1)ev f/1.8 1/40

Here I was trying to express the “glow” of the cold.  In reading that statement it occurs to me that perhaps I had been out too long.  Anyway, I increased my shutter speed to hopefully avoid any movement as I was shooting a bracketed exposure.  I lowered my ISO to avoid, as much as possible, too many blown out highlights.  I also put the f-stop to 1.8 because I wanted to blur out the background more than I had in the first photo.  This photo has been processed in Photomatix.  I wasn’t sure that I wanted to create a black and white image, but that was what looked best in my opinion once the editing had been done.

Now here is the irony.  Someone hit our mailbox just hours later.  And I’m not talking about a slight bump.  The post was snapped in two at the base.  We did emergency repairs (and when I say we, let me be honest and say, it wasn’t me) and now the mailbox is a little shorter, but hopefully it will hold until full repairs can be made.

As for the photos, what do you think of the two versions? have a favorite or another comment? feel free to leave them below.

Cheers!