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Most of the ice photos I've ever seen just miss the mark for me. Even when impressive and technically superb, they generally go for the grand panorama or concentrate on an activity and wind up looking like postcards. Rarely do they reveal anything unexpected or lead you into the earth. Since this last winter was my first with a camera, I decided this was my chance to see if I could use ice to reveal my own aesthetic.
The first thing I found was that photographing ice and snow is surprisingly difficult. The dynamic range of intensity in a winter scene can wipe out essential detail. The only solution I could find was shooting each image with both medium and low contrast, and using a variety of exposures. At times I had to piece things together. However, the most useful tools were the following:
1) Make incremental adjustments in brightness and contrast. I say incremental, because the final result in a brightness/contrast adjustment depends very much on *how* you reached your final settings. And it doesn't all go on one direction. Sometimes you have to jack up the brightness a little in an area and then hit it with more contrast.
2) Select individual intensity ranges for processing. Usually this means working only on dark areas or avoiding further processing on areas that are already light. Use the lasso and the selection tab to isolate or avoid. For example, if sky burning is going to be a problem, lasso the sky behind your image and then use Select/Highlights. Then hit Select/Inverse. You can then increase brightness and contrast in the rest of the image. This takes some practice, as it has a tendency to "flatten out" the image.
3) Experiment with saturation. Sometimes an area of medium brightness can be really made dramatic by increasing saturation. You have to be a little careful, as this tends to "curdle" monochromatic areas. Sometimes I have to do a Select/Color and apply a Gaussian blur.
4) Dress warm and don't be afraid to get pretty cold. My best shots were taken while laying down on melting ice or wedged into a ravine with water pouring into my boot with an air temperature well below freezing. Our ancestors did this all the time and they didn't have a warm house with chicken soup to return to.
5) Keep your batteries warm. I keep my spare battery inside the palm of my mitten/glove. And if the camera is going to be idle for a while i slip it inside my coat. When a battery does expire you can generally get it going again by warming it up.
6) Experiment with a polarizing filter. Bright sunlight is slightly polarized, and a filter over your lens can reveal colors not visiible to the eye.
Here are a few examples:
This first was formed over a stream during the course of several days of freezing. As the stream level dropped, the lapping waves added to the pendants until they were several inches long. Most of the shots I took were crummy. But one day the sun finally came out, so I went down and got it. What you don't see here is my left foot in the water. There wasn't any other way to take the shot. Since my house is only a hundred yards away it wasn't a big deal.
This next shot is very thin ice over the same creek. The color came out during photoshopping and as a result of the polarizing filter. Thin ice is best for this type of image.
The one below is under a rock shelf. The exposure time was about four seconds, as i recall. It was impossible to get a tripod in there, so I used the rock as a camera rest. By the way, the little white thing in the upper left quadrant is a fossil.
The one below is my total favorite. First of all, I was laying on melting ice on a lake when i took this, and I could hear the ice cracking around me. Sweet. Secondly, I had absolutely no idea that this detail would be revealed. The original image had a somewhat milky appearance and looked good enough, but I had time on my hands and wanted to play. So I tweaked the brightness and contrast for a while and this is what I got. I seems to me, personally, that I've been granted a great secret of the earth.
And by the way, the image itself is actually upside down. It's a partial pendant, formed the same way as the top image above.
The final examples are forest shots. We have these fantastic looking wild grape vines and sumacs growing all over the place, but getting a shot of them is next to impossible. When I download the images everything gets muddied together. A light dusting of snow can help.
This first image is a path that leads around our spring. I have a warm place in my heart for this path, as I followed it many times with our children when they were young. The trees bending over are staghorn sumac. When they are in bloom they are rich with a sour tasting nectar. You can soak them in cool water and it comes out like pink lemonade.
Finally, there are the wild grapes. The fruit is pretty sour and mostly skin and seed. But tasting brings you closer to them. I can't count all the times I shot this image and dumped the files afterward. The snow solved every problem for me.
Finally -- where does one look for this stuff? My favorite spots are tangled forests and edges of streams, especially during freezing weather when the water level is going down. And in the woods, look for natural water courses. Follow them to where they spill over dams formed behind tree roots or fallen branches. And then look beneath. And I like using a polarizing filter and stopping down my aperture, even when taking close-up shots.
Good hunting, and comments are welcome.
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