Shooting in Ice.
Ice is a beautifully dangerous natural wonder that draws attention in extreme forms. When you wake up in the morning and your lawn is frosted over you don’t seem to make much of it right? Well how about if you were to wake up with 3 inches of ice all over your lawn, deck, cars, and sidewalks then it would grab your attention pretty quick. Lucky for me I live in the Northwest where we don’t typically get the extreme cold or ice that other parts of the world get. So when it does get cold and our rivers, lakes and waterfalls start to freeze up that’s a good time to head out with my camera to see what I can capture. Everything looks different covered in ice, so naturally I want to capture it and record the moment forever.
Sunday Jan 2, 2011. I went out shooting in the Columbia Gorge with Ned Fenimore, Eric Hahl and Rick Lundh. All 3 are great photographers and fun people to shoot with. We all share the passion of photography. We started out at the Woman’s Forum shooting across the little valley over to the point where the Vista House sits. (See image above and click on images to view larger) We were not out of our cars much due to the extreme wind and arctic like conditions. I feel we were able to capture the sunrise quite nicely with the Columbia River in the background and Washington State on the left side of the river. The sky was beautiful as the sun rose to the far south. The wind, however, was not so friendly. I would estimate gusts of up to 6o mph brought the already cold 23 degrees down to about 11 or 12 degrees wind chill. Lucky for us our biggest worry here was just holding on to our tripods and making sure the wind did not blow them over. After this we decided to take the Historic Highway Rt 30 and see what the water falls looked like here. First we stopped at Latourell Falls which is a beautiful waterfall anytime of the year. We made our way down the trail until the dry pavement turned to solid ice at least 2 inches thick. Not having the proper footwear we did not attempt to go down to the bridge due to a sharp turn in the trail and a downward slope. Chances are better than not that we all would have ended up on our butts and we would not have been able to get back up the trail anyways! See image below for what Latourell Falls looked like on this day! Here you can see the ice covered trail on the far left and the bridge down below on the right.
Next we stopped at a few other waterfalls but I did not take out the cam as I was more into shooting the various ways the ice had covered the Gorge. We stopped next at Wahkeena Falls where we took the short hike up to the view of the main falls. This was a beautiful sight to see as the cement railings were totally covered in ice, the walkway between the 2 was solid ice and icicles were hanging from the arches in them. While we were shooting here the mist was so great and the air so cold that as it hit our jackets, hats, fingers and cameras it just froze. We all had white frost on our jackets as we made our way back down the trial. A sign of a good time. Below you can see the massive amounts of ice that have covered the entire area.
As fun as that was to shoot, it was by far not the toughest to shoot. We hit that waterfall next. Horsetail falls. The extreme amount of water coming over the falls combined with the wind and mist made this one by far the most dangerous with the most ice. Getting down low to get a good comp was near impossible. By the time I had covered my camera, and walked down the stairs to get a not so typical comp, there was ice forming on my hands, camera and in my facial hair. I was able to fire off a couple shots but only the first one was free of water drops as the mist just covered my lens and camera faster than I could get a second shot off. This was the best comp I could get with the least amount of water on the lens. Be sure to click on this image to see the quantities of ice. This was also as far down as I could go safely.
In this next image you can see how the mist has covered the branches of the trees and iced them over. Some are so heavy with ice they break and fall. The ground to the left of the sign looks dry but it was solid ice that was clear and not white so it made walking all that much more interesting!
We ended the day at Emerald Falls aka Gorton Creek Falls but there wasn’t as much ice there as these other places. We called it a day after that. All in all it was a good day and fun to get out shooting when the weather conditions are extreme to us. I know as some of you read this you will laugh thinking to yourselves that this is not extreme. Well maybe not for you but here in the Northwest this is pretty cold!
One last picture to also show the intricate beauty of ice closer up as water flows underneath it. These closer more detailed shots are really what I like about ice formations. You really never know how water will freeze and the designs it will form.
The above image was taken before noon on an overcast day last year giving the cool blue tones you see here.
