While the calendar said winter started on December 21, 2021, I couldn’t tell it from the mild, spring-like temperatures we had for several weeks with temperatures in the upper 60s and, occasionally, the lower 70s. But, that all changed in rather dramatic fashion a couple of weeks ago. And, boy, when it changed, it changed!
The week started off pretty mild, but the cold air arrived late Wednesday with snow, sleet, and other winter precipitation blanketing the northern third of the state overnight. I had planned a trip to the Tyler Bend area of the Buffalo National River on that upcoming Friday; however, with several major highways being covered with ice and snow and Thursday’s temperatures remaining below freezing all day, my plan was in jeopardy.
Fortunately, the roads were clear by Thursday afternoon. So, Friday morning, I got up at 3:45 and was out the door and headed to the Buffalo River by 4:00 as I had planned.
I arrived at 6:15, about an hour before sunrise. With no particular spot to reach and no flashlight to see where I was walking, I waited in my truck until it was light enough for me to see. Then, I put on my coat, hat, and gloves and stepped outside.
That’s when I discovered there was still a fair amount of snow on the ground. With temperatures staying below freezing for the better part of two days, I don’t know why I was surprised by that, but I was. Then, I realized just how cold it was. I checked my phone, and it said the temperature was only seven degrees. Yes, you read that right. Seven degrees! Needless to say, I questioned my sanity and wondered if I should just go back home.
Remembering one of my goals for 2022 was to get out and photograph despite the weather conditions, I wasn’t going to backtrack on that the very first time I faced challenging conditions. Also, if I was going to drive five hours (about two and half hours each way), I was going to have something to show for it. I decided to stay and see what I could find to photograph.
Making my way down to the river, I noticed that ice had formed along the edge of the river bank where the water was at its most shallow, so I began looking for interesting patterns that had been created in the ice. After only a few minutes, I found these intriguing “ice spikes.”
There were a couple of things I found fascinating about this formation of ice. First were the actual “spikes” that had been created. Second, in the gaps between the spikes, the ice had formed what reminded me of the teeth of a saw blade. Third, and perhaps this was what really struck me, was how fragile these little “ice spikes” were. They might have looked formidable, but all I had to do was breathe on them for a few seconds and they would have been gone in the blink of an eye. As powerful and enduring as Mother Nature is, she is also very fragile and fleeting.
My biggest concern was making sure I had enough depth of field to ensure the entire image was sharp. With this in mind, I very, very carefully set up my tripod directly over the ice formation and positioned the camera so the back of it was parallel to the ice. I also needed to consider that the spikes had formed slightly above the underlying ice creating two different planes of focus. Selecting an aperture of f/6.3 accounted for that issue. With an ISO of 100, my shutter speed was a relatively slow 1/8-second. But, since neither the subject nor the camera was moving, the shutter speed could have been several seconds long with no ill effect.
The biggest changes I made to the image while processing it were to increase the color temperature to remove much of the heavy blue tone caused by the scene being lit by the sky, increase the overall contrast, and crop the frame into a 4:5 aspect ratio. Finally, in Photoshop, I removed a small section of rock from the bottom left corner of the image that I found very distracting and a small group of rocks along the upper right edge that were, shall I say, less than appealing.
After getting this shot, I wandered around looking for some more compositions for about another 45 minutes or so and then decided it was time to move on to my second location.