In search of snow and ice and all that glistens
With the onset of global warming, days of heavy frost and snow are few in number, so when they occur, its case of grabbing as much time with your camera as you can before the inevitable thaw sets in again. It’s always great to have a plan to maximise your chances of capturing something worthwhile and on a frosty Saturday morning in December, I found myself on the slopes of Slievenaglogh in the Mourne Mountains shooting a number of ice formations. Too often your ‘best’ potential shots can fail to deliver; rather, it is the incidental ones, taken in passing, which come to the fore.
This capture was one of my ‘in between’ shots, taken simply out of curiosity whilst walking past a frozen puddle. I feel it has certain ancient rune-like attributes, and with the small bubbles of ice sprinkled across the background, the sense of a solar system comes into being (Planet Waves or Moondance – Dylan or Van Morrison?).
Initial thoughts of potentially creating a stark monochrome image were quickly dismissed in preference to preserving the warmth emanating from the dark brown turf below. This, combined the amber edging from the afternoon light, created a somewhat more natural impression.
Post-processing preparation of the image for fine ink embellishment was challenging, as all too often the detail of the ice is over-sharpened, and lines quickly become hardened and unnatural. Care must be taken to preserve subtle beauty of the formation and the way that the light reflects through it.
Embellishment with a number of both opaque and translucent inks help to subtly give more emphasis to the sharp edges of the ice, and it was one of those images that I kept returning to.
The following week produced a continuation of the icy conditions, which suggested there might be the potential for an array of ice stalactites along the Bloody Bridge track and on the walls of the higher quarry. Expectations were high for some great ice shots in the bag, but it was the landscape capture of the quarry walls, and their characteristic glow of yellow ochre and burnt sienna in the setting afternoon sun that stole the show – photography in all its serendipity.
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