*Ten percent of profits from the sale of prints or licenses in this gallery will be donated to the Sierra Club Foundation.
Color and texture are my favorite elements in a photograph. Water and ice seem to possess a never-ending range of those elements. They are such simple things that we experience every day. I certainly don’t dwell on thoughts of either most of the time. Yet, I’m still fascinated by them. Two phases of the same molecule, necessary for life and under the right conditions, can also take life away.
Both are incredibly powerful, eroding mountain ranges and coastlines on large scales. Water and ice are art forms. Each one creates an infinite variety of patterns. Up close, there is a stunning structure and complexity in ice crystals or the flow of water.
On human timescales, ice seems static, unchanging. But it is often subject to incredible forces of gravity, internal and external stress, and wind and ocean currents. Not to mention that with the temperatures on the surface of Earth, there is frequent melt, freeze or refreeze, and sublimation. Deposition, crystal growth, and the transition of snow into firn and then ice through grain growth is a remarkable process. These forces often drive changes in the ice through deformation. Ice presents as enormous and powerful forms of glaciers that carve through rock and simultaneously contain the most delicate feathers of hoarfrost within.
Water in art often invokes thoughts of calm reflections on a lake in summer or seaside vistas. But water displays its most intricate detail in turbulence. Its deepest color shows by contrast with its surroundings.
Water and Ice – Photo Project and Collection
My current project involves capturing images of the detail, complexity, and range of color of water and ice. Photographs are both on macro and micro scales. I intend for this to be a life-long endeavor, as I frequently find myself in natural areas with an abundance of this element. I have no guiding vision for this collection, and that’s the way I like it.
This hobby developed organically while out hiking or skiing and taking photos. I’d often get distracted by the surface ice on a stream by the side of the road or go off-track on a glacier trek to follow a supraglacial stream to a moulin. I loved the feeling the images invoked, how I could hear the rushing water, the echo of the ice cave walls, or the trickling water down a small moulin. Sometimes it is just the absolute silence near a growth of ice feathers where there is no wind and seemingly no environmental interactions.
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You can check out the full Water and Ice Gallery below. A portion of this gallery’s profit from print or license sales will be donated to the Sierra Club Foundation.
