Posts in Category: ice
Ice Bells on the Mousam
Along the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
I told the story of finding these ice bells along the Mousam River in yesterday’s Year Poem. (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+StephenIngraham/posts/Ec4WMeWA9xQ) . This set formed off and existing shelf of ice attached to a log just the right height above the stream. Though I understand the physics of the ice bell, I am not at all sure I understand the physics of this shelf and ice bell formation. ?? It is certainly beautiful with the sun shining through it!
In camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 514mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Thin Ice
ice on Back Creek Pond, Kennebunk ME
Though I have hundreds of images left, we will take a break from the birds and critters of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge this morning to visit one of my favorite local Maine ponds. The pond is ice-covered, but just…and the ice still has a lot of character: bubbles, ripples, strange patterns where it froze around things, etc. It looks almost as though the ice formed instantaneously…the whole surface freezing in one second…catching whatever was going on…freezing motion. In this case…the stress lines formed by a bit of floating debris.
In-camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 148mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/250th @ ISO 2000 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
The Physics of Ice?
Ice covered cobble at the beach.
I have been trying to get my head around the physics of this ice covered cobble, found on our local beach, yesterday. If you look closely you will see that the whole cobble, which was about the size of a grapefruit, is coated in a smooth shell of ice about 3/8 of an inch thick…very uniform…very tight. Though it appears clear at first glance, as though the stone had been dipped in poly-carbonate or liquid glass, looking even closer shows that the shell is made up of a lacework of tiny ice bubbles fused into the tight shell. This was not the only one. The stone had to be within a certain size range…not much bigger or smaller than this…and it had to be pretty much perfectly round and relatively smooth itself. As you see from the photo, other stones near this one were not effected the same way. I still can not imagine the mechanics of the process. It was very cold the night before…but, still, how did the receding tide produce this effect? (If you know the answer, feel free to post it in the comments.)
Sony HX400V at 45mm equivalent field of view and macro. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure (Program shifted for greater depth of field) ISO 80 @ 1/1000th @ f6.3. For scale, the snow drift at the edge of the sand is at least 5.5 feet tall. 🙂
Icy Panorama
Back Creek as it enters the Mousam River a few hundred years from the ocean.
We will take a break from hot Honduran hummingbirds today. This is an unintentional panorama, stitched in Photoshop Elements from two images. I was going to post only one or the other, but in looking at them I wondered if Photoshop could make a seamless pano from them. No sooner thought than tried. It took two tries but PE, using the Auto setting on Photomerge Panorama, did the trick wonderfully well, and even automatically filled out to the edges of the rectangle. Impressive software…and, switching gears, an impressive winter we are having. We had maybe 4 inches of fresh snow by morning yesterday, but it got to the low 30s. We are back in the teens today, with below zero temps for tonight. People are hiring bucket-loaders to pile the snow next to their drives, as conventional pick-up plows can no longer push the snow high enough. Two story houses have two story driveway piles. After the first storm, we have been blowing ours so we have a whole yard to fill…but it is indeed filling up. This shot, with the broken ice (broken by the tide), gives you a good feel for our Maine winter this year. 🙂
Two 24mm equivalent field of view, in-camera HDRs, from the Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom and stitched into a pano in Photoshop Elements Photomerge tool.
Frozen
Rachel Carson NWR
From the hot and humid rainforest of Honduras to the cold and frozen mixed temperate forest and marsh of Maine! Quite a contrast. After two days when my exercise was snowblowing the drive, I got out my new snowshoes yesterday for a trip (slog) around the trail at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters. It was 10 degrees when I left home, and only 14 degrees two hours later when I returned. With wind in the forest of Rachel Carson, and especially out on the platforms over the marsh, it was indeed frigid…but I enjoyed being out in the deep woods in the snow (3 feet or more in spots) just as much as I anticipated. Others on snowshoes had gone before me…so I did not even have to break trail. This is the loop in Branch Brook before it joins the Merriland River to become the Little River for its last run to the sea.
I was experimenting with the Snow mode on the Sony HX400V, and I am pretty much pleased with the results. I could get more texture in the snow by underexposing and using HDR…but the tones and color temperature in the Snow mode shots are excellent. Just as it looks to the naked eye. 🙂 Frozen.
24mm equivalent field of view. ISO 80 @ 1/2000 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Winter Brook. Happy Sunday!
Batson River at Emmon’s Preserve, Kennebunkport, ME
Yesterday, it was in the single digits at dawn, and only 9 degrees by 8 AM, but I decided to suite up and go looking for Snowy Owls and Eagles anyway. No Eagles at Roger’s Park. And no Snowy Owls in Biddeford Pool…though I put my hood up and walked all the way out to East Point. I thought I might find some interesting ice bells on the Batson River on the way back, so I drove into Emmon’s Preserve and hiked down to the stream. Evidently conditions have not been right for ice bells this winter. The river (brook really) was almost completely ice bound, with just the most vigorous water at the small falls still flowing free. There was only one set of tracks into the river since light snow on Thursday, and I found that someone had ridden up the river on the ice with a mountain bike, once I got to the water…other than that it was pretty quiet in the woods at Emmon’s. Even the sound of the water was muted by the ice and snow.
There is, of course, a beauty to such stillness…winter has its charms. I maneuvered out to the edge of the stream and the snow and ice covered rocks…being very careful were I placed my fur-lined Crocs. For this shot I got as far out on the rocks as I dared, and then held the camera out at arms length over the water to get the angle on the falling stream. Then I retreated just as carefully. If anyone came into Emmon’s after me yesterday and studied my tracks as I studied the tracks of the day before, I am sure they wondered what in the world I had been doing. 🙂
Being retired, I have more time to enjoy the Maine winter this year. I got myself a set of snowshoes and poles with Christmas money and gift cards, and had already bought a set of Under-Armor like foundation thermal under-garments for my time in Bosque del Apache. I call it my winter ninja suit, since it is close fitting and solid black from the toes of the sock-liners all the way to my neck. Of course, when I put the rest of my clothes no one knows I am a winter ninja underneath. I have an LLBean dual season parka with a removable fleece lining and a wind and waterproof shell, hooded, that is simply the warmest coat I have ever owned, and I have my trusty Tilly wool winter hat, and couple of different weight pairs of gloves. If it were not for having to keep the driveway clear, I might even enjoy the Maine winter this year…and actually, I am making a commitment to enjoy it despite having to keep the driveway clear. If we get too much snow I can always hire a plow and do my part for the local winter economy. Though we don’t have enough snow yet to make them necessary, I can see how the snowshoes will make the winter much more accessible. I had them in the back seat of the car at East Point and Emmon’s just in case, and no amount of snow will keep me from visiting. I plan to visit many of my summer haunts right through winter this year. It should be good.
It will be good. Having the right gear has already changed my attitude toward the Maine winter…which I will admit, I was not looking forward to. You could say I am settling into the mind of winter, coming to terms, and beginning to look forward to its unique opportunities. Even if we don’t get Snowy Owls and Eagles this winter, I will find something to celebrate in the season.
This seems like a purely physical accomplishment…dependent on having, finally, the right gear for winter…but it feels like a spiritual achievement. Getting my body and my stuff prepared has allowed my spirits to rise…and it is the rise in spirit that is the important, that is the significant part. This whole winter attitude thing is another example of why I believe that it is impossible to separate the spiritual and the physical. We make an error when think that the divine and the eternal happen somewhere different, on a different plane, than the space and time where we spend our fleshly lives. More and more I think it is all one…that the spiritual and the physical are not two realities but two ways of looking at one reality…and that the closer we get to living a life of the spirit in the flesh, the less meaning that distinction will have.
Or to put it another way…my spirit has always been ready for the beauty of winter…it just took some doing to get my flesh to the same point. And now that we are all in sync, things are going to be good. It is going to be a beautiful winter. Happy Sunday!
Apple Ice
Ice on one of our small Apple trees in the yard.
We had a few inches of wet snow overnight on Saturday into Sunday. After dawn it warmed just enough so the last of it fell as rain, but not warm enough to melt the existing snow…and it stayed just above freezing all day. By Monday morning, the snow was still there, and had a solid coating of ice. There was just enough snow to try my new snowshoes in the yard, and as I did I was captured by the ice on the Apple tree: strange, delicate sculptings, standing almost free of the branches. I had to go back in for my camera (shedding snowshoes and reattaching them on the way back to the tree.)
As I post this morning, I realize that what I am seeing here is the shell of ice that was on top of the snow that built up on the branches. Wind and sun have removed the snow layer, but the ice was too hard and now it floats apparently free in space. It looks, to me, like something from a gallery of modern sculpture…something both intentional and free…something crafted to capture and express the flow of the universe. And I have no trouble believing that it is. 🙂
And of course I offer it here, nicely framed, as just such an expression. With all credit to the original artist.
Sony HX400V in camera HDR/macro. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Icy Fantasy
Ice coating moss and grass in the front yard
We woke yesterday to a layer of ice over everything. I hurried my breakfast to get out as soon as there was light enough, and before the layer melted. I might as well not have hurried. When I went out at 6PM to run an errand I still had to chip a half inch of ice off the car before I could go. 🙂 I took lots of subjects, lichen covered branches, leaves, etc…as I walked around the front yard, but I particularly liked this set of macro shots of grass and moss.
Sony HX400V at about 60mm equivalent field of view from inches away. Using Program Shift, I dialed the f-stop down for greater depth of field and counted on the image stabilization built into the lens to cover the resulting slow shutter speeds. I also took a burst of images on each subject to ensure I got at least one critically sharp.
Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Photastic Pro on my Surface Pro 3 Windows tablet.
The Pearl
I love macros, and I sometimes remember to take them 🙂 There is a definite discipline about looking closely enough to even see the possibilities. I find it takes and effort to shift my focus to macro, and, once there, an equal effort to shift out again, so my macros come in bunches. (I am not speaking of the camera focus here, but my internal vision’s focus.) This was a macro morning, with fresh ice on the trees.
One of my tests of any walk-around-camera, for me, has to be how well it does macro. The Sony NEX 3NL with the 16-50mm zoom can be tricked into being quite a satisfying macro machine. You just have to use macro mode, and Clear Image Zoom. That gives you something above 1 to 1 macro, and the results are pretty good. This pearl of ice was actually quite a bit smaller than you are seeing it, if you are looking at the image on anything bigger than a phone. 🙂
Sony NEX 3NL. 16-50mm zoom. Macro mode. 75mm equivalent plus 2x Clear Image Zoom. ISO 200 @ 1/160th @ f6.3. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Icy Needles
We had just enough freezing rain yesterday to say so. Actually it rained on top of our snow for several hours, and just a short drive north of us there was significant ice build-up, but Kennebunk, or at least Brown Street, missed the worst of it. Rather than a solid sheath of ice, we had a granular coating, probably retaining the structure of the snow chystals, and clear frozen drops at the ends of things, like these pine needles. Icy needles. 🙂
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. Macro mode at 75x equivalent. 2x Clear Image zoom. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.