Ice Swan Flats

Happy New Year!

Thanks for the extra motivation to go out and explore a bit on New Year's Day. I went to a couple parks near my grandparents' home in SE WI. The last time I'd been to one of them was over 30 years ago. The other was new to me. This image is from a fishery creek my uncle told me about.

The creek worked its way back and forth over a fairly small area open to the sky. Normally when I head out with a camera in winter, everything is snow covered so it was interesting to make some new to me observations. These bends of the creek seem to create the best little worlds of ice. I was prepared to go hiking, but never managed to get out of sight of my truck over a few hours.

In this image, it feels like 3 dimensions are flattened out. The foreground is the land, the thin ice all the creatures (I see a lot in the big image...kind of like looking at clouds), and the water is the sky. The light color in the water was a branch which worked well to represent a ray of light.

Today, just 3 days later, these little scenes are gone as we've had a bit of snow and rain the last 2 days.

I had an idea for a grand finale photo for the day as well. I had another bigger icescape overhanging the water and reflecting the sky. But it needed some color. The clouds had amazing texture and were thin enough they glowed on one edge. This was going to be sweet! I had 30 minutes til sunset. I waited. Blazing colors on the horizon north and west of me. Come on...come on...pop above me! Waited 20 minutes after sunset and never got anything but grey. Whatcha gonna do...

I'm heading off to the snow covered landscapes now to see what this new world looks like. I have some ideas...we'll see if Mother Nature decides to work with me!