Beautiful Sunday at Snow Sculpture Festival at St.Petersburg .:. EN/RU

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(Edited)

Where to go at St.Petersburg in winter season? Its a tourist city, there are many interesting things to see - but the winter season is generally not the best time to visit. Why? It's all the weather's fault. The Baltic Gulf located nearby provides high air humidity, combined with low temperatures, this is all very unpleasant. More precisely, even a much lower temperature is perceived and tolerated more easily and easily if there is no such humidity and wind (for example, somewhere deep in the continent). And having such a bonus as high air humidity, even a measly minus 5C seems like a very, very unpleasant thing...

(That was sort of a lyrical intro :)

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Therefore, if you find yourself in St. Petersburg in winter, it is best to visit a museum, or a cinema, or an exhibition, or, at the very least, a café-bar and pizzeria! It's warm inside, hot aromatic coffee, delicious orange pizza...

The wise reader, accustomed to reading between the lines, probably already guessed that I didn’t go to the museum, right? This morning (as an exception, in contrast to the whole week) the sun came out, and just after lunch I grabbed my camera and ran out of the house to quickly see something and take a photo. (Yes, yes, I miss photo walks!... no new photos - and no new posts... my followers are also upset and ask questions, where did I go).

I went to one of the two parks in my neighborhood. The most amazing thing is perfect timing! I came at the right time to see the “Winter and Snow Sculpture Festival” taking place there. Right before my eyes the sculptures were finally completed, I witnessed the work of the jury and the selection/awarding of the best works. Therefore, I will not only show a lot of #streetphoto, but also tell you which works turned out to be the best.


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The park's landscape looked pretty crowdy -- and the crowd looked pretty busy!

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The festival is lucky! A huge plus was that the temperature was about zero - this made the snow soft, plastic, sticky. At lower temperatures, the snow becomes dry and friable, like salt - it’s difficult to make even a small snowball from this...

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The participants did not come with bare hands! They had not only mittens, but also buckets, water bottles, paints and much more, including carrots. Instead of eyes, you can use birch cones and leaves, branches with dry leaves and dry reeds from a nearby pond will perfectly depict hair... but such work will not be very surprising, but a knitted wool scarf or hat, painted from a bottle of snow paint, shows much more greater degree of creativity; and all this, of course, should be thought through in advance.


This one I suspect was meant to be the biggest, but turned out 'the tallest'.


I didn’t understand well why it was hung over with lockets, what does mean this spectre of business cards... it turned out to be some kind of overly Conceptual Snowman. Alas, conceptualism is not always benefit to the art, lol.


Art should be simple!

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Cats - I found two wonderful snow cats among the statues.
One was more realistic...

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...and another one was more cute. 🐈🐈🐈
The dogs also were present, just in less quantities.

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The author of this statue, after she noticed my 200mm telephoto lens (I was standing at a solid distance) even took a step towards me and asked to document the ephemeral work of her team (a rather rare case). I hope my camera's work will make a favorable impression on her - many people are so much used to shooting with their phones that simply do not see what the difference is.


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"I am the snowman! - I am the walrus!" May be not the best work in terms of “flow of execution,” but for my taste it was one of the most creative, I liked it a lot.


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There was a unicorn too. It won in one of the nominations (check the tail of the blog about that).

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Yes, of course, the art work was of different levels/ degrees of perfection/ skill - some were made by large teams of adults, others were made by small family teams, and of course this is difficult to judge objectively...

Is it time to talk about the winners? At the beginning of the competition, four nominations were announced:

  • the biggest snowman;
  • the cutest snowman;
  • the most unusual snowman;
  • the most stylish snowman

...and then it turned out that there was one more, fifth, secret nomination: “Choice of the Jury”, the most attractive work of those who did not receive a prize.

The Cutest snowman turned out to be a cat sculpture.


Big Mom; very, very big.

The Biggest snowman was 'Mom and Daughter'. The concept was not yet clear while I was photographing it during the manufacturing process, but everything became obvious later. This is truly not only a great job, but also spectacular... beautiful.

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The Most Unusual sculpture was a snowman lying upside down.

...the year of 2024, according to Horoscope, will be the Year of a Dragon; so there were some entries with a dragon, most of them were not so convincing, except of this one.

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Jury labelled it as Most Stylish snow sculpture. This is my only photo where this statue is presented 'in full' - and it looks like rather a Snake, than a Dragon. But anyway - this is really very creative and skilled work, especially in comparison with a more trivial snowman, made from three balls of different sizes.

And the unicorn received the unambiguous sympathy of all members of the Jury, i.e. Choice of the Jury.

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RU


location: St.Petersburg, Russia December 2023 natural light
camera/lens: Canon 5D Canon 70-200mm raw-conv

Thanks for walking with me, see you next time.


* * * Russian version * * *

Куда пойти зимой в Питере? Это туристский город, здесь есть много интересных вещей которые стоит посмотреть - но зимний сезон, вообще говоря, не самое лучшее время чтобы нанести сюда визит. Почему? во всем виновата погода. Балтийский залив расположенный поблизости обеспечивает высокую влажность воздуха, в сочетании с низкими температурами это все очень неприятно. Точнее говоря, даже гораздо более низкая температура воспринимается и переносится легче и проще, если нет такой влажности и ветра (например, где-нибудь в глубине на континента). А имея такой бонус как высокая влажность воздуха, даже жалкие минус 5С кажутся очень и очень неприятной штукой...

(Это было лирическое вступление :) Поэтому, если уж вы оказались в Питербурге зимой, лучше посетить какой-нибудь музей, кинотеатр, выставку, в крайнем случае кафе и пиццерию! внутри тепло, горячий ароматный кофе, оранжевая пицца...

Мудрый читатель, привыкший читать между строк, наверное уже догадался, что я не пошел в музей, так? Сегодня с утра (в виде исключения, по контрасту со всей неделей) выглянуло солнце, и как раз после ланча я схватил камеру и выбежал из дому, чтобы поскорее увидеть что-нибудь и сфотографировать. (Да, да, я скучаю по фотопрогулкам!... нет свежих фото - и нету свежих постов... мои фолловеры тоже огорчаются и задают вопросы, куда же я пропал).

Я пошел в один из двух парков, расположенных по соседству со мной. Самое удивительное - совершенный тайминг! я пришел в тот самый момент, когда нужно, чтобы увидеть происходящий там "Фестиваль Зимы и Снежной Скульптуры". Прямо на моих глазах скульптуры были доделаны, а жюри выбрало лучшие работы и наградило участников. Поэтому я не только покажу много фотографий в стиле #streetphoto, но и поделюсь небольшим инсайдом - какие работы оказались лучшими.


Надо сказать, что мероприятию повезло! Огромным плюсом стало то, что температура была около нулевой - это сделало снег мягким, пластичным, липким. При более низкой температуре снег становится сухим и сыпучим, как соль - из такого трудно слепить даже маленький снежок...

Участники явились не с голыми руками! у них были не только варежки, но и ведерки, бутылки с водой, краски и многое другое, включая и морковки. Вместо глаз можно использовать шишки и листки березы, ветки с сухими листьями и сухой тростник с расположенного рядом пруда отлично изобразят волосы... но такая работа не сильно удивит, а вот вязаный шерстяной шарф или шапка, окрашенный из бутылочки с краской снег - показывают гораздо большую степень креатива; и всё это, конечно следует продумывать заранее.

Кошки! Среди статуй я нашел двух замечательных снежных котов. Один вариант был более реалистичным, а другой, с шарфом, более милым. Собаки тоже присутствовали, только в меньшем количестве.

Автор собаки, приметив мой 200-мм телеобъектив (а снимал я на издалека), даже догнала меня и попросила задокументировать эфемерную работу ее команды. Редкий случай! Надеюсь, работа моей камеры произведет на нее благоприятное впечатление – многие люди настолько привыкли снимать на телефоны, что просто не видят, в чем разница.

Снеговик верхом на морже - возможно, не самая лучшая работа с точки зрения техники исполнения, но на мой вкус одна из самых креативных, мне очень понравилась.

Еще там был единорог. Он победил в секретной номинации :)

Эммм, наверное пришло время рассказать о победителях?

Да, конечно, арт работы были разной степени совершенства и искусности - одни делали большие команды взрослых, другие делали маленькие семейные команды, и судить объективно конечно трудно...

В самом начале конкурса, были объявлены четыре номинации:

  • самый большой снеговик;
  • самый милый снеговик;
  • самый необычный снеговик;
  • самый стильный снеговик
    ...а потом оказалось, что была еще одна, секретная номинация: "выбор жюри",- самая симпатичная работа из тех, кому не досталось приза.

Самым милым снеговиком оказалась скульптура кошки.
Самым большим - снеговик "Мама с дочкой".
Самой необычной скульптурой признали снеговика, лежащего кверху ногами...

2024 год по гороскопу будет годом Дракона; было несколько снеговиков в виде дракона, большинство из них не слишком убедительные, кроме одной; именно ей жюри вручило приз как самой стильной. Это моя единственная фотография, где статуя видна «в полном объеме» - и похожа она скорее на Змею, чем на Дракона. Но в любом случае – это действительно очень творческая и искусная работа, особенно по сравнению с более тривиальным снеговиком, сделанным из трёх шариков разного размера.

...в общем, респект и уважуха всем тем семьям, кто не сидит дома уткнувшись в свои мобильные телефоны, а выводит деток наружу и показывает на примере, что именно нужно делать со снегом :) креатив - наше все (а больше-то у нас почти ничего и не осталось, все забрало дорогое правительство и работодатели, вывихнутый век и %$%$&^#@* уклад жизни).

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All images taken by me, copyright (c) @qwerrie
My posts at pinmapple.com
Thanks for visiting my blog!


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@tipu curate

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Grazie, Nina, Grazie Mille! 🙏 Glad you enjoyed the visuals. (I am pretty much happy with this visit and all the shoot, even tho my batteries run out so fast that I did not capture all I wanted to...) Let me send back your way some !PIZZA ☘️

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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 187 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
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For me anything below 15°C is too cold so I can tell you in advance that I'll never (NEVER!) visit St.Petersburg in winter season :)

It is nice though, to see your pictures and all those amazing snow creations! I loved the upside down one!

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Yes! Totally agree. Hive suits well for travelling across the world, siting on your chair... isnt it? !LOLZ ☘️

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Knock knock...
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The only bit of snow that we ever had in the city cost me a hiding. Unfortunately, I missed a friend when I threw a snowball at him, and it broke an aunties window.

You have some great shots here my friend, and it seems to be a wonderful competition for the families.

Cheers and let me give you some !PIZZA and !LOLZ.

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(Edited)

The only snowball caused such consequences? oh my!
I got you, the amount of snow was so little it was enough for only one snowball, so you couldn’t make another one. I dont !LUV this story - no happy end! But I like your visit, glad the visuals pleased you. 🙏

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No, there were a few snowballs, but the one snowball caused the damages. And it also cost me a burning bum, so the ending was not a happy one. !LOL
A pleasure to visit, as it is a great post and so I send you also !PIZZA and !LUV 👍

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We like the way you play the game! !PGM
Thanks for being a supporter of The LOLZ Project.

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The people who built the snow cats, gather Christmas and all did a fantastic job
They look good
Nice pictures!

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Thank you, Rafzat. Grazie! Actually, all teams did fantastic job, even tho some of the teams were superior to others. It was a pure pleasure for me to watch. I wish I could take part myself with my family! The snow was of simply ideal texture for creativity! lets celebrate it with a !BEER?

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You’re right
Thank you!

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That sure looks like it was fun! I'm glad the sun poked out to warm things up a bit. Those were some great shots you got there!
!DHEDGE

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Thank you for the extra tokens, and good wishes. Sun means so much for me, hehe. I'd value it more if I'd live by the tropical seaside maybe, but.... vice versa xD Let me share some hot Hive !PIZZA back, and maybe theres some !BEER left in the fridge too? ☘️

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Great time! The emotions and atmosphere are captured simply perfectly in the photo!👍

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Thanks, Kim! ☘️ Have a nice day!

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awesome!untitled.gif

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Haha! yes 😜 hilarious!!! Ideas are flowing in the air 😆

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Art should certainly be always made simple

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Aw, what a delightful thing to watch! So many snowmen. Whatever happened to Frosty, hehe. I loved the cat statues, specially the one that looks like sphinx ❤️

Thank you so much for taking us to the festival instead of the museum 😁

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кверху ногами - зачет
но я очень люблю собак, поэтому собачка сразу мне припала до души
вообще интересный конкурс! у нас +11, отлично)

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да и у нас тоже плюс 3, лужи, все ходят под зонтиками.. снежная поляна растаяла моментально (

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лужи, грязюка - ага. У нас дождей ливануло за весь год. Для урожая они были нужны, так нет же. Зато сейчас мокрая мокрота. А жалко, что растаяло...ну хоть фотки остались!

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Hello qwerrie!

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