Happy new year to all! Here is the image I had chosen for my paper New year cards. I have taken it during my trip to British Columbia in September 2011. There was already snow during my stay there. I called this image "Symetries" for obvious...

With the winter 2010-2011 coming to a close, I wanted to show a few last pictures with snow before spring settled in. Here are a few images taken this winter, all of them converted to black and white from RAW files.

Natural patterns in the snow, close to La Hulpe, BelgiumNatural patterns in the snow, close to La Hulpe, BelgiumNatural patterns in the snow, close to La Hulpe, BelgiumArtificial patterns in the snow, created by skiers in Les Arcs, France

The first three ones were taken not far away from where I live with my Canon EOS reflex digital camera - nothing special there. The last one, taken during my ski holiday in Les Arcs (France), is a special case: this picture has been taken with my Canon Powershot A630 compact digital camera and was also converted from RAW to black and white. Wait a minute ! Many of you will probably think that I must be wrong: a Powershot A630 does not take RAW pictures ! Indeed, that is what I thought also until a few months ago when I discovered CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit), a very potent and versatile (and free !) firmware update for many Canon compact digital cameras (Point & Shoot cameras).