Snowy Vltava Tilt Shift Countdown Timer

Another tilt-shift, another snow day, another attempt to make a capital city look like it came out of a box. This one is the Vltava in winter, the river pale and flat and moving slowly between its snowy banks, with a green steel bridge on the left and a cluster of ochre buildings on the right and a hillside of snow going up behind them. The miniature effect is doing so much work here that it almost tips over into being a diorama, the boats looking like bath toys, the barges like something a child would push around a carpet. I like the colours. All that white and grey and then that one row of warm yellow buildings, like somebody left a light on. This was shot from up on a hill on a cold, clear afternoon, and the air was so sharp that everything in the middle of the frame came out crisp while the foreground and the distance dissolved. That is the tilt-shift again. It lies, but it lies in a way that makes you look twice. I have made this picture three times now and it never comes out the same way twice.