Winter in southwestern Colorado has been quite cold this year—much colder compared to recent years. One benefit of all this cold weather is the chance to look for naturally occurring ice formations, or to try creating my own in our yard. While I generally consider myself to be a responsive photographer in which I exclusively react to the existing natural world around me, I occasionally like to experiment with photographing under slightly more controlled situations. With these ice experimentations, I consider my approach to be a partnership with nature in which I control some of the variables and then natural processes fill in the blanks.
In early 2024, I shared a blog post, Backyard Abstracts: Photos from My Ice Farming Operation, with my first set of cultivated ice photos. I did not realize it at the time but my friend Jennifer Renwick was also trying out some of the same things in her backyard. She generously shared some information about her approach and I went to work by combining the approach I tried previously with some of Jennifer’s ideas.
The photos here are the result of three very cold mornings spent outside, trying all sorts of different things. Cultivating this ice is an entirely unpredictable process which makes it both interesting and quite challenging. After I got a promising result, I’d try the same process again to see if I could get a larger patch of similar ice formations only to realize that a few degrees of warming or some other shifting variable between attempts significantly altered the patterns. It was such a fun and fascinating process to watch the formations as they developed, with the stunning intricate details slowing coming to life.
All of these cultivated ice subjects are very small and I used my 100mm macro lens to photograph each scene. An important lesson, applicable to all kinds of macro photography, is how much the result can change with a different angle or slightly different lighting. When placing my camera parallel to the ice formations in flat light, most of these patterns appeared lifeless. By changing the angle of my camera in relation to the formations, they often came to life. A tiny bit of reflected light or even harsher direct light brought texture to the patterns, making them appear far more vibrant, detailed, and textured.
I have had the same experience with photographing larger sections of naturally occurring ice. As you move around ice—a reflective surface—how the light interacts with the formations will totally change the result. I also find the same thing when photographing plants. Sometimes, if I change my orientation to the subject even a tiny bit or choose a slightly different angle, very small modifications in the light will make a big difference in how dimensional or textured the subject looks in the final photograph.
Since I’m sure I will receive some questions about the technical details, I’ll share a few basics. As mentioned above, I used my 100mm macro lens on a Canon R5 camera, all set up on a sturdy tripod. Most of the photos show a section if ice that is a few inches across, photographed at an angle. This approach made it essential to use focus stacking, using between 10 and 25 files, to get the full frame in focus. I stacked the files in Helicon Focus, my focus stacking software of choice, and then processed them with my normal workflow in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
I have included a few more of my favorite photos from these sessions below. If you would like to see the full collection, you can head over to this gallery.
Sarah Marino is a full-time photographer, nature enthusiast, and writer based in southwestern Colorado. In addition to photographing grand landscapes, Sarah is best known for her photographs of smaller subjects including intimate landscapes, abstract renditions of natural subjects, and creative portraits of plants and trees. Sarah is the author or co-author of a diverse range of educational resources for nature photographers on subjects including composition and visual design, photographing nature’s small scenes, black and white photography, Death Valley National Park, and Yellowstone National Park. Sarah, a co-founder of the Nature First Alliance for Responsible Nature Photography, also seeks to promote the responsible stewardship of natural and wild places through her photography and teaching.