After the Freezing Rain

[Round Tuit]

The sun can really light up a frozen tree the morning after a freezing rain storm. The picture doesn't do justice to the magnificent scene but it is the best I could do.



C & C always welcomed.

[lovelife65]

Gosh Andre not to be a downer, but this does absolutely nothing for me. I’m not sure why there is only a partial tree, and really it’s not that obvious there is much frozen in this photo. I’m sorry, maybe others have gotten something from it.

[Manfred M]

Andre - I was out with my camera after the freezing rain as well. The lighting was interesting and the trees looked magnificent covered with the layer of ice with the sun reflecting off the ice. The shots I got, even after spending a fair bit of time in PP were disappointing, so I did not bother going any further with them.

Somehow the my eyes saw things that my camera could not record.

[Yuukon]

I've always found freezing rain perfect for macro shots- less so for shots like these. I can see the tips of the trees shining but like the others have said, this shot doesn't do much for me either. Perhaps next time you could try to work with close-up and macro instead- I've seen gorgeous shots of plants and leaves encased in ice.

[Round Tuit]

Hi Sharon, In these days of political correctness, it is refreshing to get such a brutally honest opinion. I agree with you that the picture is mediocre at best. I should have been more specific in my request for comments.
I occasionally run across a beautiful scene that I just cannot find a way to capture and when that happens, I usually am content to simply enjoy the scenery. A deep blue sky, clear ice on the branches and bright sunshine combine to make a really magnificent show of light that I have always given up trying to photograph. I posted this one hoping that someone would be able to suggest a way to do it.
I see from Manfred's post that I am in good company and this is both reassuring and disappointing.
Zooming in on small details such as ice covered twigs or berries as suggested by Monique can work well and I have done so in the past but I was hoping to find a way to capture the thousands of sparkling diamonds in the tree. Maybe it simply cannot be done.
Thank you all for your inputs.

[Manfred M]

André - reflecting on what we were attempting to do, I suspect what happened is that the effect we liked looking at was in fact how the light was changing as it reflected and refracted off the ice coating. Take away the element of time and the images were not capturing what we were seeing.

The next time we have similar conditions, I am planning to do a very short video clip to see if that captures the magic that we could not get in a still image.

I went a lot closer to the subject than you did, but the overall image did not capture the "magic" I was looking for. Here is one of my "failures".

[Round Tuit]

André - reflecting on what we were attempting to do, I suspect what happened is that the effect we liked looking at was in fact how the light was changing as it reflected and refracted off the ice coating. Take away the element of time and the images were not capturing what we were seeing.

The next time we have similar conditions, I am planning to do a very short video clip to see if that captures the magic that we could not get in a still image.

I went a lot closer to the subject than you did, but the overall image did not capture the "magic" I was looking for. Here is one of my "failures".

Getting closer certainly helps. This is a crop of the top of the tree in the OP.



I don't know why the rest of the tree didn't show the "glitter". The next time that we have ice encased trees, I will try to use as small an aperture as possible to generate starbursts and see if that helps. I am curious to see if your video approach will work.

[Manfred M]

Getting closer certainly helps. This is a crop of the top of the tree in the OP.



I don't know why the rest of the tree didn't show the "glitter". The next time that we have ice encased trees, I will try to use as small an aperture as possible to generate starbursts and see if that helps. I am curious to see if your video approach will work.

It looks like your part of town got a much heavier level of ice accretion than in the part where I live.