When wind and cold writes music

[Saulius]

Coming back from disappointing early morning landscape shooting from the middle of the icy lake, I came across interesting icicles. Morning sun had a good angle, so icicles where shining. Some unpleasant metal constructions where getting in all zoom-outs, so I took some close up shots. On the other hand, shapes of the ice was impressive and I decided to focus on details, make it  as part of the compositions. Thus composition of shapes, details, color tones, light/shadow contrasts... is what I wanted to point out. I am sure there had to be some better compositions with metal constructions in it, but i was not intending to "walk around/take look" on the cracking ice, knowing, that it is 3-4 m depth beneath :-).


I am open for your critique. Thanks.

Saulius

P.S. Color tones vary depending on thickness of the ice and amount of the sun light. Though I did minor white balance adjustments to some shots.

[Saulius]

This is the place.

[wolfnowl]

Great series!  Thanks for sharing them.

Mike.

[AndrewKulin]

I think these are fantastic - interesting texture/shape to the ice and the warm/cool colour combination and change from light to dark area work for me.  I prefer the colour versions becasue of that but the B&W work very well too.

[Justan]

Brilliant work on capturing the colors and textures while keeping the image soft. I would have a hard time selecting a favorite amongst the group

How did you get the soft appearance?

[Saulius]

"How did you get the soft appearance?"

Not sure what do you mean by "soft". The colors are soft almost naturally. "Almost", because I did white ballance adjustment. In the image, shadow areas where too blue, so I adjusted reducing blue color, thus adding warmth. But it was just minor correction. Other possible cause of immage (tonal) softenes is ice luminosity. It makes the effect, I guess. It was very good time for shooting. The morning sun was just right. Not too bright yet colores where there. I spent there about an hour and all later shots does not seem good to me.

Saulius

[Saulius]

I think the main secret of color softness is in combination of the ice that is formed from turbid water and early morning sun light. The particles of snow in the shadow areas gives mild blue tonality. Thickness of an ice gives color variations.

Don't you find the B/W shots somewhat flat?

Thanks everyone.
Saulius

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

I think the main secret of color softness is in combination of the ice that is formed from turbid water and early morning sun light. The particles of snow in the shadow areas gives mild blue tonality. Thickness of an ice gives color variations.

Don't you find the B/W shots somewhat flat?

Thanks everyone.
Saulius

To me the b/w shots win.
You could try "optimizing" them with curves or USM in some way or another of course.
I believe color doesn't add much here, so I'd go for the simpler b/w version which I find very beautiful.