Thanks for your comments Tim and Slobodan. Some atmospheric elements you can't control, like fog, but snow is different. Tim, you've chosen to blur it to look like fog - in my conception of this image I had chosen a shutter speed to blur it enough to create the diagonal streaks, hoping to show how this tree has stood, and stands, up to the elements, first fire, then ice(snow). Its also a graphic element which I like, taken from a theme in some japanese wood block prints, and a device to give some depth and layering to the image. Couldn't use light and contrast to get the tree to stand out from the background, but the snow helped do the same thing.