LEAVES UNDER ICE

I had thought that the fall color season was entirely over, particularly after a couple of early snows, as well as considerable wind that blew virtually all of the remaining leaves off the trees in our neighborhood.  However, this morning I noted that a light snow from last night, along with a bit of wind, had left a very modest drift on the small pond in our subdivision and thought there might be a photo op as we transition to winter (ugh).

So I walked back to the pond with my camera.  The drift was hardly an interesting opportunity.  I cropped the image a bit, turned it into a black and white, and increased the contrast.

Meh.  Abstracts are all right, but this one is essentially unintelligible.

However, when I was at the edge of the pond, now covered with a layer of ice, I noticed that the ice had trapped leaves from a variety of trees, including those from the trees in the neighboring woods. I thought that the distortions created by the layer of ice were interesting and gave the images an artsy look.

The definition in the leaves is dependent on how far they are below the surface of the ice.  Here is a closeup of a portion of the above shot.

I thought that the "white" leaf in the above shot added an interesting focal point.

I wish that the ice had not incorporated air bubbles, but there they were.  I think I should point out that I did ramp up a bit the color saturation and the contrast in order to bring out the colors in the leaves.

John