When the  temperature drops into the single digits, magical things start to happen on the north facing windows of the house. Ice formations begin growing into beautiful mosaics and abstracts. You never know how the ice will form or the shapes it will take. Every day is full of new surprises.

Earlier this week we had overnight temps near zero and daytime highs in the low teens, this is perfect ice forming weather. Up until yesterday afternoon our kitchen windows have been a photographers delight. This lovely ice tree showed on up on Tuesday morning. By Wednesday morning it became embedded in a larger formation and Wednesday night it was all gone, melted away by warmer temps. The ice should return in a couple of days as the temps dip down again and new wonders will appear on our kitchen windows. As always, my camera will be ready.

I’m currently going through a faze where I’m pushing my creativity a little more. I’m trying some new things with my photography and walking the fine line of my comfort zone. Some of my experiments are working well and others are stinking the place up. But the key is, I’m trying new things and growing as an artist in the process. This image is a good example of that.

The other day I noticed that the leaves on one of our Lilac bushes had started to change colors. Since the wind was blowing and I couldn’t shoot the leaves outside, I picked a few and brought them into the house to play around with.

I tried a few different closeup ideas but wasn’t satisfied with any of the pictures. I was starting to get frustrated and thought about giving up on this idea. That’s when I picked up one of the leaves and held it to a window. Wow! I was blown away by all the detail that came out . The back lit leaf was exactly what I was looking for.  So I got a roll of Scotch Tape and taped the leaf to the window and started shooting away.  Before I was done, I had taped up three different leaves and tried many different compositions and ideas. Of all the pictures, this one is my favorite. The detail is a little hard to see at this resolution, but in the full resolution image the detail is amazing.

What’s most interesting to me about this experience is that I was able to come up with a way to capture the beauty of this leaf. Now taping a leaf to a window might not be an original idea, I’m sure others have done this before me, but it’s an original idea to me. I’ve always been an outdoor nature photographer, not an indoor one. But by thinking outside of the lines, pushing my comfort zone a little and experimenting with a new idea, I feel my creativity has grown and the possibilities of showing nature’s beauty have grown too.

I had been watching this rose for days. It’s growing in our front yard flower bed and is the only rose blooming right now.  As a bud it was beautiful, but the wind never gave me a chance to shoot it. On Friday there was a soft rain falling when I remembered the rose. I had to use my hat to keep the rain from hitting the rose because every time a rain drop would hit it, the rose would move.

The image was shot using my Canon EFS 18-55mm lens and Canon EF12 II extension tube. I shot it at ISO 200 to try and help my shutter speed, but even with that the shutter speed was 1.3 seconds at f32. The softness was added in Photoshop.