2025 Port Jeff Ice Festival #1

[Jim_Erhardt]

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Image Description

This past weekend Port Jefferson held its 2025 Ice Festival. The event features ice sculptures placed in front of shops in the harbor section of the village. The ice sculptures are amazing but photographing them is a challenge due to distracting backgrounds.

This one was placed in a way that I could get a pleasing BG by shooting it from the back. The right side was cropped to eliminate a building pillar, and I had to use the AI removal utility to remove power lines in the very ULC.

As youn can see, the sculptures sit on a square block of ice that serves as a base. Trying to include the entire sculpture including the base was somewhat of a challenge as well, so for most of them I framed just the upper portion where most of the detail was found. This helped tame the distracting BGs.

This outing was also my first use of a new RF28mm F2.8 STM pancake lens. Super small and lightweight, it performed very well and was a joy to use for this “street photography” outing!

Feedback Requests

General feedback on all aspects is appreciated!

Pertinent Technical Details

Canon EOS R6II handheld
RF28mm F2.8 STM with circular polarizer
f/2.8 @ 1/1000, ISO 100
Processed in LRC

[Dennis_Plank]

An interesting challenge to photograph these, Jim. The clear ice and highlights must be quite difficult. Too bad about the building pillar as this really feels like it could use a touch more room on that side. Exposure is beautiful as is the ice detail.

This reminds me a bit of when I was going to Michigan Tech many, many years ago. The annual winter Carnival featured snow sculptures (by then there were several feet of snow on the ground) by the dorms and fraternities or other groups. If I recall, our entry (an old small dorm) was Ben Franklin knocked on his can by the lightning hitting his kite. I think I took a picture of it at the time, but I kind of doubt that it exists any more.