If this looks a bit strange to you, as I expect it will, take some time to figure out the situation of the shot - not the tech stuff, the nature stuff.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), July 31, 1998

Answers

Very, very nice - it's just too small. I wish it would fill more of my monitor and I'd like to see it as a print too. It's hard to make out what covers the leaves - looks like a mixture of snow, rain droplets and hail to me. The numerous highlights give a glow and crispness to an otherwise dull color combination (brown and black). Very lovely! So far I enjoyed all three pictures you have posted here.

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), July 31, 1998.

Frank,

Is there a spider web covered with dew over the leaves? Very interesting, but I imagine it looks better on paper than on my monitor. Tough exposure value to pick. The white spots look a bit hot to me, but if you stopped down any more, I imagine the leaf detail would be lost. Did you bracket?

-- Jim Korczak (korczaks@ptdprolog.net), July 31, 1998.

As always, the image is great. Looks like a frosted deer track to me.

-- Patrick Kalgren (pkalgren@penn.com), July 31, 1998.

I believe Patrick got the quiz right. Good eye!

-- Chris Hawkins (peace@clover.net), July 31, 1998.

Sorry, Patrick and Jim,

No prizes yet, although Andreas is in the ballpark.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), August 01, 1998.

My answer to the quiz (let me just squeeze in here that I think it is beautiful): Dead leaves in a frozen lake surface, covered with a little snow or frozen dew.

-- Philipp Leibfried (phil@provi.de), August 01, 1998.

OK, Philipp Leibfried is close enough for my purposes.

Leaves, the obvious part, under and in ice of a frozen woodland pool. The stuff that you guessed as snow, hail, spider webs and frozen dew is actually air - silvery bubbles trapped in the ice as it repeatedly froze and thawed. Eventually the ice becomes as clear as glass, if it lasts that long without additional input from snow and/or rain. There are also some surface irregularities that show up indistinctly. The considerable contrast levels and burnt-out look to the bubbles is due to their inherent mirror-like appearance and the strong side light providing the illumination. There are also some irregular shadows from the surrounding trees and bushes.

I've spent some time looking into frozen ponds, but I have never been as lucky as a man I met in Montana who told me that he once followed a turtle under the ice of a small lake by walking on the surface.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), August 01, 1998.

Thanks for filling us all in. As I said before, it may be my monitor, but the lack of DOF and the failry low contrast of the subject really throws ya for a loop. I love shots that make you THINK! My next guess was a charred tree stump . . . go figure.

-- Jim Korczak (korczaks@ptdprolog.net), August 01, 1998.

Frothy ice, yes, obvious (and beautiful) to me. But, that sure looks like a hoofprint between the leaves, where the highlights are absent. Too big by far to be a deer, and not pointed enough towards the front, looks more like an elk print to me. But ... it looks squished by weight to my eyes. Are you sure there isn't a hoofprint here?

The pattern doesn't seem quite right, but it's hard to judge perspective from such a small scan...

-- Don Baccus (dhogaza@pacifier.com), August 05, 1998.

Don,

Yes, it does look just like an elk print (at least the left half does), but it isn't. This was done in coastal Connecticut where elk haven't been seen in a loooong time (moose, either). Also, the pattern is in the bubbles, not in the substrate and looks to me like some kind of shadow (I'm looking at the original print wich is quite similar to the posted image.) The diagonal line and the compound curve that follows the edge of the leaf in the upper left corner seem to be from similar sources.

This patch of ice has a lot of surface irregularities that appear as out-of-focus blotches (not so easy to see on the screen version) and they may be contributing to these effects.

The pattern is seriously warped by the irregularity of the ice and, among other things, lack of perception of depth. For instance, the ice may be anywhere from 2 to 6 inches thick and the leaves (which aren't necessarily horizontal, can be on the bottom or well up into the ice itself, so shadows are hard to pin down and don't appear to have a uniform angle.

This is one of the wierder and harder to understand of my leaf and ice images, I'm not even sure I like it, but it does draw attention. Eventually, I may get some of the more nearly "normal" ones up, but don't hold your breath as it depends on how cooperative Community of Artists is!

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), August 05, 1998.