The Times We Lived In: Snow makes dull road a thing of beauty

Love it or loathe it, there’s no denying that snow creates a magical landscape, making even of the unprepossessing Naas dual carriageway near Rathcoole, Co Dublin, a thing of wonder and beauty.

For some, however, the wild otherness of a snowy scene is beyond the wildest imagining. “I wish, Nanna,” my eldest granddaughter confided to me a month or so ago, “that there was snow in my world”.

A child of “the lucky country” at a time when luck has translated into prosperity and privilege, Ava’s Australian skies are almost always a strong, pure blue. In her five years she has never seen snow.

What is it like, Nanna? she wanted to know. I should have just shown her this arresting aerial study by Pat Langan.

It is both a document which can produce shudders in those of us who leave the car at home as soon as the first flakes appear, and a construction as artful as an abstract painting.

The eye first registers the upward horizontal march of the road, its harsh straight lines cutting relentlessly through the countryside. The hedgerows, by contrast, march in all directions, their edges softer and fuzzier. On the road itself, ironically, nothing is moving – apart from a few tiny stick figures who have abandoned their vehicles and are heading off into the west Dublin Arctic.

The angles of the pitifully pocket-sized vehicles themselves, meanwhile, are all over the place.

In the foreground, two trees stand forlornly like half-finished snowmen, while the drifts at their feet and the swirls on the surface of the field nearby produce a pattern as playful as a Miro painting. Off to the top right, the scene continues north-eastwards out of the frame as if the photographer were, indeed, flying across the Arctic or Antarctic.

Shiver? Smile? Take your pick. In a year when a hard winter has been forecast, we may have to live with an outbreak of the white stuff. But at least we don’t have bushfires in “our” world.

Arminta Wallace

These and other Irish Times images can be purchased from: irishtimes.com/photosales l A new book, The Times We Lived In, with more than 100 photographs and commentary by Arminta Wallace, publishe by Irish Times Books, is in bookshops now, priced €19.99.