One of the editing tasks that I regularly perform is to look through my “Last 30 days 1 star” smart album, which contains those images that held some interest for me when I was initially reviewing them, but which also needed a bit more thought about whether they were really keepers or not.

This one, shot during our “frosty spell” in early December, has been in that queue, but it was only as I visualized it in black and white that it came to life for me, which was funny, since there was very little color in it to begin with. I moved it up to the ’2-star’ queue, which I tend to revisit every three or four months. That’s when I get a bit more ruthless about editing: is it really a good image, or were there parts of it that detract and cause it to ultimately go back down to 1 star, or even more severe, into the world of no rating, which means it will ultimately get archived and largely forgotten.

(See it bigger, if you’d like; there’s some nice detail in there, especially among the supporting characters.)

one of the joys of the past decade has been getting to know this man, @duncan. He is a prince among men, so wish him well as he turns forty…