Ice pattern

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Ice pattern

February 5, 2020 by Mike Powell

With the weather so warm recently in my area, it is hard to remember that the puddles were iced over last Thursday when I captured this early morning shot of one of them at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Winter in my area has been exceptionally mild—we have had almost no snow and only occasional periods of below-freezing temperatures. I have always been fascinated by the abstract patterns that form as water freezes, but this was the first time this season that I was able to capture a shot like this.

I am even more in awe of the amazing photos that I occasionally come across of individual snowflakes—capturing a shot like that is on my list of aspirational goals in photography.

Posted in abstract, Art, Nature, Photography, Winter | Tagged abstract ice pattern, Canon 50D, ice, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 150-600mm, Woodbridge VA | 11 Comments

11 Responses

on February 5, 2020 at 8:06 am | Reply Reed Andariese

Nice Mike! Ice patterns are fun to photograph!
on February 5, 2020 at 8:50 am | Reply Dan Antion

Nice, Mike. I love looking at the patterns in ice.
- on February 5, 2020 at 9:14 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Dan. You get to see ice I bit more than I do. Most of what I have seen this winter came out of the ice maker in my freezer. 🙂
  - on February 5, 2020 at 9:51 am Dan Antion
    
    Haha – it has been warm.
on February 5, 2020 at 10:52 am | Reply Steve Schwartzman

That’s an excellent geometric abstraction. Without your telling us that this is freezing water, I might have assumed I was looking at rock crystals.
- on February 5, 2020 at 10:57 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Steve. I hadn’t really thought about minerals, but now that you mention it, it does look rock crystals–it is hard to be objective about my own shots. (My mind was influenced also by the fact that I took the photo with my 150-600mm zoom lens, despite the fact that it looks like a macro shot.)
on February 5, 2020 at 3:33 pm | Reply krikitarts

Striking similarity to etched glass.
on February 5, 2020 at 6:05 pm | Reply Michael Scandling

Using a 150 to 600 mm lens to do a macro shot! Aren’t fractals wonderful! This is a great shot!
- on February 5, 2020 at 8:45 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Michael. Fractals are definitely cool. As for the lens, it is sometimes amazing what I am able to capture with the “wrong” lens. 🙂
on February 7, 2020 at 4:59 am | Reply Steve Gingold

I’ve found these a few times and it always seems funny that they look unreal with the lighting creating a frieze appearance. I am amazed at snow flakes/frost crystals also and think this guy does some amazing work.
https://skycrystals.ca/snowflake-gallery/
- on February 7, 2020 at 7:00 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Those images are amazing. The photographer’s patience is incredible–he states that he spends four hours editing each image on average, because of the way he uses focus stacking techniques. Wow!