This morning I decided to do something that seemed smart at the time, and now, in retrospect, was clearly an awful idea.

I thought I would get up early before work at sunrise and go take a picture of St. Michael’s Cathedral in the morning light. I loaded up and got into a gypsy cab, which was still warm from running missions for the mafia the night before, and told him to take me to St. Michael’s. The taxi driver looked at me strangely and stabbed his hand out the window towards the sky.

Yes, I told him, I know there is a blizzard and it is dark.

I was thinking maybe it’s just one of those morning blizzards that passes through, like fog in Texas or a light dew. After he dropped me off, I noticed there was no discernible road, running cars, people, or heat. I especially noticed the last one as the wind started to whip around, carrying the snow at orthogonal angles to the ground. I used a protractor to make sure.

Before reaching full hypothermia, I squeezed out this nine exposure HDR, and the final result was able to peer through the density of the snowfall in all the exposures… so this does not really indicate the severity of the blizzard, but it did get a strange blue morning light through the clouds.

Getting another cab home was a problem. My feet were so cold by the time I made it back to the hotel, the only way to warm them was to insert my toes into a room service omelette.