*** Mini Challenge 546: Wintertime Joy & Fun

Dear members,

according to the season here on the northern hemisphere,

this week's Mini-Challenge is "Wintertime Joy&Fun".

Winter sports, winter olympic sports, snowball battles, snowmen building, snowy roads cleaning, avalanches shooting, goats winter fun ..... (Avyman, do you hear me? )
When landscapes or similar, please with an action included only.

Hot country inhabitants, please don't complain, we don't have the sea here, either.
Feel free to post your take of winter fun, dunes skiing, camel riding, off-roads etc.
(No offense mentioned)

A major criteria for judging this MC is the creativity, yet reasonable picture composition and overall quality counts.

This challenge will officially end on Friday 9. February 2018, 22:00 GMT +1 or similar but I don't care the time shift.

Sincerely, guinnness2

Challenge Rules

The host gives you a topic and you post up to three images that fit.

Remember, it's all about fun, sharing, and learning.

Any picture you have taken in person is eligible, regardless of time taken, camera or post-processing used.

The host chooses the winners and honorable mentions and posts those in a new thread. The host's decision is final.



The winner of this challenge then hosts the next challenge, judges the winner of that one, and so on it goes.
The winner of this challenge will have 48 hours to post the next challenge. If that doesn't happen, 2nd place will have 24 hours to do so, then it's up to 3rd place.

Submission Posting Guidelines

Post each one of your three submissions in its own reply to this post.
Give each post a unique Subject, please.
It's best to embed an image in its post rather than linking to somewhere else.
Feel free to post photos "for exhibition only" if you want to share more than three or won't be available to host the next challenge.
Try to preserve the EXIF please, so we can see which camera, lens, and settings were used.

Comment Posting Guidelines

Feel free to post comments on the images or ask for comments.
Don't hesitate to click on the green "Like" thumb on the top right of the post, so we know which images were most popular.
The host can make up his own mind without being influenced by that.

Recent Mini-Challenges:

545 Led Zeppelin Song Titles
544 Composition
543 My Best Shots of 2017
542 My Best Shots ‘So Far’ of 2018
541 Holidays
540 On the Job
539 Something Missing
538 The Bridge
537 Alone
536 Autumn
535 Let's Rock!
534 Fog, Mist, Low Cloud, Smog
533 Transportation
532 Summer
531 Serenity Now!
530 Colours
529 Favorite Images
528 Post Processing Magic
527 From Where You're Sitting
526 Shallow DOF
525 Food
524 Hamming it Up

I guess I'll get the ball rolling on this one:

Here are some figure skating shots from earlier this year. The technical quality of the shots isn't great, the venue was quite dark, but I think they're OK at web resolution.


Entry #1: Winter Fun


Entry #2: Winter Fun


Entry #3: Winter Fun

Cheers,

Mike

Lovely , thanks. It was scary silence

Not sure if it qualifies but given the low participation rate so far, I will play.


Taken a few days before Xmas in Key West. No snow but still winter and certainly looks like joy and fun...

Hehe, fits....

Thought I'd try to make all y'all in the snow feel better. Hope it helps.




Winter on the west coast of Florida

Nice sunset, thanks

The pics don’t have to be from this winter

Btw, has “pics may not be from this winter” the same meaning ?

I can’t figure :-(

What the heck, I'll get one in here. It's an old photo, but one I still get a kick out of.

All you need now is to get a Chickadee to pose on the snorkel. Love it!

The grandkids really enjoy the local mid-March maple syrup festival; especially the pancake breakfasts!




Boiling down the sap as the pioneers did

I really enjoy winter bird photography. Although taking mittens off and getting the proper white balance is just as hard as finding the subjects.


Winter take off from frozen Lake Ontario

Bonus shot off-contest


Sometimes they just lay in wait, basking in a warm late-winter sun. Very hardy birds!

Canada Geese are not wussies either. If there's any open water they will stay all winter long. It's a joy to see and hear them fly by when sitting in the hot tub.

Ontarian said:

All you need now is to get a Chickadee to pose on the snorkel. Love it!

Click to expand...

Hmmmm ... maybe I should have put some bird food in the snorkel.

Hi Guinness,

I don't visit this forum very often but thought I'd check in late tonight to see what was happening. Noticed you were running the Mini Challenge so looked further. Then saw you mentioned avalanches and goats as entry suggestions--along with my calling it appears! Here are some just for fun.

Having worked with snow and avalanches for some 36 years I can attest to it being pretty fun and enjoyful ... most of the time.

Here are some shots taken today (I guess yesterday now) of avalanche mitigation work by the ski patrol this morning with hand-thrown explosives. This peak is just 2 feet shy of 13,000' (3,962m). Note the fresh avalanche fracture line above and behind the ski lift.



The team, a crew of 4, worked their way along the ridge to the left. A charge is just exploding on the left while two team members to the right on the skyline prepare to do explosive control work in the steep chute below them. That slope drops farther down to a lake behind the middle ground ridge.



Here's a different area much farther north being shot earlier this season. You can probably see three patrollers left of center on the ridge. They had previously shot the avalanche below them. There are two shot holes, one in the shadow, just above its fracture line. To the team's right (in the picture) a little ways you might be able to see a ski track angling down into the top of a steep gully that disappears from view farther down. That person will test the slope and make a determination if it's safe to open to the public. Fun? Sure. Dangerous? Sometimes but it's a heavily calculated risk. Maybe better described as exhilarating (which is even more fun in a way).



When it's NOT fun is when you have to go up there in subfreezing temperatures (always the case) and in howling winds with low visibility.



Here's an example of how deep the winter snow can drift along the leeward side of the ridge. This is the tallest fracture line I've ever been under to examine the weak layers, 16 feet. From a very old poorly scanned slide.





Since mountain goats were mentioned, here young and old alike romp and play in the left over winter snow. They seem to enjoy it a lot.

















Nice to see many familiar names still here, and still entering fine pictures for these competitions.

Hope you don't mind the many shots and long-winded descriptions, Guinness. But you did ask. ;-)

Nick

--
"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order." John Burroughs, American naturalist and essayist 1837-1921.

Hi AvyMan!

What a surprise and coincidence.

Thanks for posting, this is, how the entry should look, despite it’s off contest.

Glad you are still active, where else to post goats when not into the Wildlife and Nature forum

Next weekend I go for a week of holidays to the moutains, hopefully no avalanches there

Cool

Stan in NH said:

What the heck, I'll get one in here. It's an old photo, but one I still get a kick out of.

Click to expand...

Nice one, I can smell it

Fun in the snow!

Fun with winter color