It’s also home to one of the more characteristic Texas state parks. The last time I visited Caprock Canyons State Park, I arrived on a beautiful, open-sky afternoon, only to find myself car-camping that night in one of the most voluminous winter thunderstorms I’ve experienced since living in this part of the state.

Then it got cold. Very cold.

The next morning, I woke up to find everything covered in ice. Although snow is not all that frequent here, ice is an ever present and often visual element to the season. That with the low fog cover and the contrast between evergreen cedar trees and the time-telling red dirt, you might find it worth your while taking images in adverse weather.

I’m headed back out to Caprock Canyons early in the morning for a day shoot, and thought about the weather predictions made for the next couple days. It’s supposed to be nice…we’ll see!

More to come.

Winter has been especially varietal in West Texas this year. I believe anyone from Big Bend to Amarillo would agree with me. We’ve had extremely cold days (for this region), snow, ice, sunshine, days that felt like the middle of Spring, more ice, more snow, thunderstorms, etc, etc… The day before Christmas, 2009, was no different, and it resulted in the most snow I’ve seen blowing around in a while.

West Texas is known for its flat, open lands, and its wind. I think this area of the country gets a little too much flack based on the wind here, but even though it doesn’t blow every day, when it does, you know it. I spend half of the day this past Christmas Eve stuck in a snow drift while out shooting the sea of white in the cotton and wheat fields outside a small town named Petersburg (home of some of the best pizza in the state: I wrote about it earlier). Driving on an east-west road during a snow storm blowing from the north will more than likely result in driving in to an accumulated drift. I know. I did it.

Luckily, West Texas is full of kind spirits, and after 4 hours (and after a rescue attempt that left another pickup with two cowboys in it stranded), a farmer brought a tractor to pull us out – on Christmas Eve. That’s what I like about the people out here. No matter what, they’re going to help you any way they can.

We’re going through another cold spell full of ice and snow at the moment, and I could only recollect this story, along with a few brisky images. If only I had images of me knocking ice out from underneath my rig with my tripod (probably the reason I will always support Bogen/Manfrotto).

I thought I would end with a little Deep Purple’s “Highway Star,” and a look at what the roads were like after I finally made it back to one worth driving on (don’t knock the quality, I don’t have clamps for external mounting, ha). This was pretty much the song that summarized my day stuck in the snow…

West Texas Snow and “Highway Star” from Jerod Foster on Vimeo.

Stay warm!

I’m nearly out from under a series of assignments for this year, but just to make a quick “Hey, I’m still around” appearance on the blog, I’m offering this image taken a couple winters ago as a free desktop wallpaper (just right click and save the image to your hard-drive). I blogged about this image a long time ago, but I still enjoy the shot, and it excites me about the possibility of more bird shots this winter on the Southern High Plains!

Here in the next few weeks, there will be some big changes at jerodfoster.com, and I hope everyone enjoys them! Until then, keep warm and take care!