Figure 1 – Wood and ice, Black’s Nook, Fresh Pomd Reserve, Cambridge, MA, March 2015. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

All winter long I have been intrigued by the trees that make their living with limbs dipped into the ponds and frozen in ice. It seems a tough existence, but they have evolved to a niche.  I made several attempts to photograph them but there was just too much whiteness to carry it off the way that I imagined it.  But now the ice is melting and the process has created some gorgeous textures and contrasts. I took the image of Figure 1 this past Monday at Black’s Nook, in Cambridge, MA around noon in a glorious late March light. The wonderful thing about March light as opposed to its counterpart September light is that the trees have not yet leafed out and the bare wood of the forest is bathed in warm sunlight. I debated keeping the original color, but in the end chose the way that I originally envisioned it in pure black and white without toning.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture-priority AE mode, 1/320th sec at f/20.0, with +1 exposure compensation.