Weekly Challenge 1/24/14 - Ice Cold
This week's challenge is all about demonstrating the concept of temperature. I figured this would be the perfect time to do something with the cold seeing as how here in the northeast (America), we've been hit with this so called "Polar Vortex". Anyway, it's winter time; freezing weather and snow abound and I love me some snow. Ironically I didn't really focus on snow in this set of images, but rather on ice. I've never really done much with ice in the past and my intention was actually to shoot something relating to snow, but then I saw this first shot and I knew that was the direction I wanted to go in. I noticed the icicles hanging off of roofs and the bottoms of cars which got me curious to see if I could capture the glistening shine of light reflecting off of them. I think it worked out really well and really captured a sense of cold in the photo.
I was then going to do a portrait with a barely dressed me (tank top and no coat) standing under the streetlight at night shivering cold and breathing out the hot air from my body. I might still do that, but I instead decided to focus on more macro style shots of ice. So that led me into these next two shots where the one looks as if it could almost be a tilt shift glacier (sort of) and the other looks like a melting sheet of ice over a beach. I tried out a technique called focus staking on that one to try to gain a greater depth of field and I think it came out pretty well. I love being able to see the rocks and sand through the sheet of ice as it gets thinner. So that's it for this week's challenge. It was definitely pretty fun to shoot all these and end up with a series I wasn't even intending to shoot in the first place. That is, of course, the point of these challenges though. They get you to think outside your normal train of thought and step into a new world where your imagination and creativity are enhanced and freedom from previous restrictions are opened up. I hope you all enjoy these and the challenges yet to come and if any of you feel like trying any of these, let me know what you get.