Understated colors

  At first glance this picture may look like a black and white image, (depending on your monitor settings and room lighting). But in a second look, you'll see it shows slight color, in the trees and railing.  Compositionally, the lighter colored railing pulls the movement of your eye from the foreground, allowing it to pass into the middle and background of the image through the opening in the railing.

 When your composition pulls or directs ones eyes to flow through the picture, your image is lively and interesting, not static or "boring".  This motion saves this image with its bleak sky, which mirrors the white of the snow and shares the curved line of treetops.

 The tree line also divides the horizon asymmetrically, with a gentle curve, which almost duplicates the line of the railing, to reinforce those primary lines in the photograph.