Crystalline Gifts of Winter

On New Year’s day, because snow was forecast, I went out for an hour and shot 122 pictures of ice on our stream from the waterfall to about two hundred feet downstream. A bit extreme do you think? (Probably not, if you are a photographer.) Once the snow fell, the opportunity would be past. Wrapped in down, I endure frozen fingers and feet because ice captures my imagination and it is ephemeral. It changes constantly, growing or shrinking with the fluctuation in temperature. A warm rainy weekend before Christmas cleared the stream of previous ice, so with the drop in temperatures a few days prior to New Year’s, new formations were growing steadily. Suddenly frigid temperatures produce ice quickly, clear as glass, with edges fluted like crystal and these I love the most. All sorts of exquisite patterns form in and under clear glazing. There are chandeliers, mounds, tiers, feathers…