I am not actually quite sure how these large crystals of ice formed where they did, in little foot square patches along the high water mark on the beach near our home. There was a large stretch of open sand above these patches, where previous high tides had cleared the snows of last week off the beach, and, at low tide yesterday, close to 70 yards from the here to the water. It looks like rime, which is generally frozen mist or spray, and indeed may be frozen spray from the high edge of the surf hours ago, but I just don’t know. It is the extreme localization and specialization of the patches that has me wondering. Why just there, and why not elsewhere? What I do know is that these patches really caught my eye…those long, almost fibrous crystals, and the jumble of them, with the sand showing through. I had to find a shell set among them for a still life.

Canon SX50HS at 632mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80. Snow Mode.

Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.