EMERALD BAY PHOTOGRAPHY - Architecture, Food, Product & Editorial Photography by Simone Paddock, serving Bend, Central Oregon, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and beyond

I have a love-hate relationship with snow.

Growing up in frosty, urban Switzerland, I was taught to fear the havoc snow (and its companions, slush and ice) can wreak upon the roads, the public transportation system, and the busy city life in general.

And while all those components are still very much a consideration, life in La Pine on the other hand is teaching me now that snow can also bring unexpected pleasures.

Such as the first moment in the morning after a nocturnal snow storm, when the sun rises and brings the cold white expanse alive with her golden light. When the thick virgin snow blanket glitters as if millions of lazy diamonds were strewn across its velvet coat. When the weight of the snow transforms the trees in your yard, the bushes in your driveway, the long grasses along my riverbank, into new and astonishing shapes and forms. When you step out of your house and you find a new world, so completely different from the one you left yesterday, and its beauty is overwhelming.