This is a close-up of some moss growing between the bricks in my backyard (coastal pacific northwest). We don't get much ice here, so I grabbed what natural ice I could off of the birdbath in the morning. The next day I held the ice with some frozen pliers and took the pictures. So in addition to air bubbles, dirt off of birds adds to the distortion.
Taken with a Canon PowerShot S90. F/4.0, 1/100 second exposure at ISO 80.
- Brian Hall
Curious Ice Kitten
I had many challenges for this one.
1. Precious little time to execute (it IS the most wonderful time of the year)
2. I live in Central Texas - had to make my ice and only had one round in the freezer. I now know what I'd do to make it better, but the process I liked best was freezing the water with crushed tin foil on it. Lovely texture!
3. I planned to picture holly through the ice. It was OK...But then I loved the psychedelic effect I got with the Christmas lights through the ice. However, in the end...my kitten was VERY curious about what I was up to, and that was what I captured last and then decided to use.
Thanks!
-Karen Tarlow
Ice Spheres
I tried different ways of creating ice filters at home (i.e., freezing water in paper plates, plastic containers, etc.), but the most fun was freezing water balloons that were later hollowed out using hot water in the sink (I say try this at home... I'd suggest with drinks!). With my (dripping) ice sphere in hand, I walked around the house and started shooting away.
This shot with a tree ornament inside turned out to be the best of the bunch.
Canon T2i, 100mm, f2.8, ISO 3200.
-Diego Jimenez
When the challenge came out, I put a Ziploc bag filled with water in the freezer (it's still around 40-50 degrees in NJ) thinking, "This is going to be SOOOO cool!" I ended up forgetting about the ice and only remembered at 10:30 pm on Sunday night, so I frantically tried to set something up. I wanted to do something with light, but all my attempts failed (light painting something witty onto the ice ("< 0 C")) until I thought of setting up a candle behind the block of ice, contrasting the cold with warmth, and setting up my Christmas tree behind to give some bokeh.
Canon T3i w/18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and 4x macro filter
ISO 320, f/5.6, 45mm, 1/3 sec
-Thiago Fernandes
Living in sunny Southern California makes it a little difficult to find ice outdoors. I ended up making my own by filling a ziplock bag with water, laying it flat and freezing it over night. My first shots turned out unremarkable and it wasn't until that I cracked the ice in the bag, that I got some interesting photos. My submission is a shot of my Christmas tree lights behind the ice filter. I think the colors and cracked ice gives the illusion of a "weird alien embryo", think "star child" from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Thanks for the challenge.
Tech info:
Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Canon EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5/6 IS Lens
f/18
1/3
23mm
ISO 400
0 EV
-Matthew Johnson
After much experimenting with techniques and subject matter, I decided to take photos of flowers through a sheet of ice to juxtapose life and death. I made a thin sheet of ice using the baking pan in the freezer method. This photo was taken with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel, EF-S 18-55mm lens, 1/250 exposure, f11.
-Jamie Babbitt
I took the lens shroud for my camera and placed it upside down in a bowl of water. When the water froze it wound up being very white right in the center of my new Ice Filter so I ran some warm water over it to thin it out and melt away the white areas. I accidentally melted two holes in the ice but figured I'd give it a shot anyway. The first photo I took managed to get a bow on the tree in focus in one of the holes. I really loved the way it looked so I set up a couple different shots using the Angel on the top of the tree and the bows on the branches are subjects for the holes in the ice. By the time I had taken this photo the filter started to melt which gave the reflections of the Christmas lights a look that I really liked. I did a little editing in Photoshop to bring out the blues of the ice. I used a Nikon D90 set up on a tripod with a remote shutter release. F/8 for 14.7 second at ISO 100.
-Tom Andersen Jr.
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, ISO 800, 1/60s, Lensbaby Fisheye Optic
People though I was snooping around someone's car when taking this photo. I was in the middle of the parking lot and pointing a camera into the driver's side window. I got a lot of strange looks, but no one could see the tiny little snowflake resting on the frozen-over window of my vehicle. Looking at the original, the ice filter just didn't look right so with the help of photoshop, I used the glass distort filter to get the right effect.
- Daniel Jang
Sony A55 a very thin sheet of ice frozen inside a square filter-holder
the shot is of my neighbor's christmas lights on a 30 second exposure.
-Marvin Francois
I wasn't feeling too confident about this challenge but I put some water in a baggie on Wednesday just in case I got inspired as the week went on. I go out in the garden today to clean up the leaves and what do you know?? I see one last rose on my Black Magic Rose Bush just waiting for her close-up and here is the result.
Thank you for the Challenge...I'm so glad I went for it in the end....
- Georgina Lawrence
"Cold Tannenbaum"
Sony A200, 18-250mm lens.
The Picture is of our blue and white L.E.D lighted Christmas tree. To make my ice I boiled water to get out all the impurities so the ice was clear. I used a silicone cheesecake pan to freeze the Ice. then washed the ice with cool water and Windex. Held the ice a few feet away from the lens and took the picture.
-Kent Ring
Hey Giz,
Well, I tried the ice filter lens and although the results turned out poorly, I wanted to submit... mostly to show the very unintentional phallic-shaped rig I came up with.
I didn't realize how phallic-looking it was until I pulled the ice out of the freezer, but as you can see in the attached cell phone image... it's pretty obvious.
Anyways, I grabbed the ice filter - which ended up being way too thick (make your own jokes) - and ran outside to shoot the Christmas lights, hoping for something. I got very distorted images that really just send back blurred colors to my lens.
Shot with a D90, Nikkor 55-200mm, f4.5-5.6, converted lens cover into an ice lens.
Thanks for the challenge.
-Kevin Gamble
Well I didn't think I'd get to enter this weeks challenge, since the Temp's have been hovering in the high 50's.
But last night they got more seasonal and retreated into the 20's... and I had all but forgotten about the challenge
until my friend ( Whose real name is NOT Greg ) strolled up with a large flat and thin piece of Ice.
So I grabbed the G-12 and had him hold it up in front of his more or less, once chiseled features. And Wa La...a bit of abstraction.
The Picture was shot with a Canon Power Shot G-12... at F:4 at 1,000th sec. The ISO was 100 and the Focal Length was 6 mm.
At 100% the most I could get out of the picture was 1412 px.
- Charlie Carroll
Canon 60D, 18-55mm shot at 24mm, ISO 100, 1/200th.
I made a quarter inch thick sheet of ice in a tub the night before. Since it was only about twenty degrees outside, it froze quickly giving it a lot of bubbles. so I took a heat gun and thinned out the center a bit to get a slightly clearer window. I took the resultant block of coldness and grabbed shot of a high voltage sign on a power pole through it.
-Brian Weiss
Moonlit Crystals
Canon 60D
24-105mm f/4 L
20 sec, ISO 800, f/16 @105mm
14mm macro extension tube
The unique hours of my job insure that i get to start my day in the coldest, darkest hours of the day. While starting my car this past week I had noticed the crystal formations on the windshield due to the very cold but very dry weather we have had recently. combine that with the full moon this week as well as Giz's photo-challenge and i had the idea for a macro shot of the crystals with the moon in my composition. Enjoy!
- Micah Rydman
We normally don't get much ice around here, so this morning when I saw my car, I ran back into the house to get my camera and daughter. She did all the hard work while I took pictures from inside the car :-) .
Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 G II ED lens @ 95mm (142mm in 35mm equiv), f/5.3, 1/60s, ISO 560, no flash.
- Mark Clem
First try at a contest of yours. Just picked this up off the Amazon deal.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5, 19.2 mm, ISO 80, 10/8000 sec, f4, 0 EV, Dec 8, 2011 02:19:18
-Zachary Muncy