Crystalline River Ice
Wyoming

24×20″ prints are $1,500
40×30″ prints are $3,000

In 1989 Ruth and I went on a three month photo trip, finishing in Grand Teton National Park in November. We had sub zero weather every night but good weather for photography, meaning bright sun and no wind.

This photograph is of frozen ice at the edge of the Snake River. The ice is covered with many frost crystals which form at night in the sub zero temperatures. The 8×10 film has precisely resolved the crystalline details. I used a 600mm lens and the swings and tilts on the view camera to place the plane of focus precisely on the flat plane of the ice. This allowed me to shoot at f/22 for 1/60 second on Fujichrome 100 film.

The Cibachrome prints have a beautiful range of blue and cyan colors and requires careful and precise dodging on some of the brighter crystalline areas. The image has an abstract quality and it could be difficult to judge the scale of the subject matter, although the river ripples help with that. From top to bottom there’s 40’ to 50’ of ice shown in the photograph.