Earlier in February, we had a week of very cold weather. On a morning when it was 6 degrees below zero (F), I found a creek that still had a little flowing water. There was a shelf of black ice along both sides of the creek, and on this ice shelf were giant hoar frost crystals. They were about 1 to 2 inches across, I had never seen ice crystals so large before. Not wanting to walk too far out onto the ice shelf, I had to shoot them using a 70-200mm at an angle. Thus I had to use focus stacking to increase my depth of field. Luckily there were some nearby ice bubbles to break up the pattern of the hoar frost crystals. While I know this image isn’t a masterpiece, I wanted to share this unusual find in nature.
This is a terrific image. Very eye catching. There is a nice flow to the crystal pattern. It is perfect for a black and white. Without your explanation, it is an abstract that would still have me wondering what I was seeing. What did you use for your B&W conversion?
@Craig_Marvil “It is perfect for a black and white. Without your explanation, it is an abstract that would still have me wondering what I was seeing. What did you use for your B&W conversion?”
Craig, I’m glad you asked, because I failed to mention that this is actually a color image. The ice was deep black, and because there is a tinge of blue in the ice bubbles, I assumed folks would recognize it as a color image, but in hindsight that is not so apparent. Glad you enjoyed it anyways.
Ed, What an interesting and very cool image. A great combination of elements in nature that you captured perfectly. The 5 shot focus stacking really worked here. A wonderful image!
Oh my, this is fantastic! What grand display of nature - well, on a smaller scale anyway. I can’t say I’ve ever seen ice crystals like this. Of course we only have your description for scale… as this could easily be a macro image. Regardless, those are spectacular ice crystals.
Great job with the focus stack and processing in general…
Splendid image, the b&w is very appropriate and the whole scene conveys the feeling of winter. Excellent use of the focus staking, which gives a result like the old tilt-and-shift large format images. Nice!
@Antonello_Provenzale, I never thought of it that way before, but focus stacking a tilted telephoto shot like this is similar to using a Tilt Shift lens, interesting observation.
This is wonderful, Ed. I love the contrast between the sharp crystals of ice and the puddle with bubbles. I can imagine a couple of comps here (for a two for one): just the crystals (about the left 12 of the image) and the puddle with some crystals (the right 1/2). It might be interesting to bring out the bluish tones a tish more, but it works great for me as presented as well.
ML
Very intriguing image, Ed. Well seen - I tend to be so focused on the grand view that I miss these intimate scenes. The ice crystals shapes are fascinating. The rendering looks great in B&W but I’d like to see in color with a hint of blue tonality. Great stuff.
What a great catch Ed, nicely processed. I like it as is, but also enjoy a slight bit cropped off the bottom and left edges to reduce the areas without crystals.
This is a very cool find and a fascinating intimate landscape, Ed. The hoar frost crystals are particularly striking in the large version as are the ice bubbles. I think this would also work with a little crop from the bottom as well as a little from the left to get rid of the blank areas.
Just a personal choice because this is a beauty as is.
