Frozen Details at Liverpool Festival Gardens
Sometimes photography is described as freezing a moment in time...well these photos are quite literal in that way!
A few weeks ago I took a mini-series of photos at the Liverpool Festival Gardens as the drop in temperature had frozen the lake. The day before I went for a walk there with my girlfriend, and as we approached the lake our attention was drawn to the strange sound created by a skipping stone across a frozen lake.
I spotted striking ice formations at the edge of the lake which I thought could make for some great macro photos, so I came back the following day.
Just in front of this patch of grass is where I took the next set of icy photos.
This photo and the one below were taken by stretching out and holding the camera out in front of me with a wide-angle lens attached.
For these more detailed photos I used my macro lens.
Here I was interested in the arrangement of the flowers surrounded by frost. I went with a shallow depth of field as I wanted to isolate the details from the background.
I had already eyed up a branch sitting on top of the lake's frozen surface, but it was out of reach for the me. Inspired, I threw this branch onto the surface. It took a few throws to get one in place - all the others slid further than I expected!
The way the frozen surface of the lake was allowed me to get a very still reflection. As there were no clouds or blue sky I decided to blow it out and go for a white background to allow the pagoda and trees to stand out.
Thanks for taking a look at this blog! I hope you enjoyed this mini-series. I really enjoyed shooting these photos (despite the cold!) and editing them - I've even had a play around with one of the photos in this blog to create the mirrored image above. It was a welcome break to work on a smaller set of photos than I'm used to.
Competition time! I'm doing another print-giveaway where a lucky winner will win a print of their choice from this blog post. To be in with a chance all you need to do is leave a comment below and let me know what photo you would like as a print and why - I'll pick my favourite comment as the winner. Get your answer in by the end of Sunday the 18th of February. Good luck!