Ice Country Updates

The Best of Winter 2010-2011

INTRODUCTION

The decaying pilings found in Lake Charlevoix at Boyne City,

Michigan, are the only remnants of the roundhouse that stood at
the waterfront during the town's lumbering days.

Liz discovered them back in 2009 when, after walking to the

bank from the deli, she took a slight detour to the water's edge
with her digital camera which she had slipped into her pocket.

Thus began her close relationship with these pilings which she
came to refer to as “the guys,” and her fascination with nature's
ice sculpture.

As winter approached, her guys began a transformation. It was

the beginning of the making of the ice creatures.
Winter 2009

The
Ice Cave
Troglodytes

The
Originals
 My Favorites Ice Country Updates of 2010

December 20, 2010

Colony – Liz, “Last year I didn't discover the pilings as subjects until the lake was frozen and they
were already shrouded in rounded humps of ice sloping directly up from the surface. They were still
fascinating, but I had no idea they had gone through this phase. The sunny, calm day was perfect for
getting the most out of the reflections.”
Ballet

Lean
The Troupe

Bear River
Totem
 REFORMATION

It froze. It melted. It's freezing again, minus all the eye-catching drips and shards.
January through April 2011

ICE BLUE SUNSET

This is the last in this series

In the picture on the next page
Liz explains how she set up for the series
Liz explained it, and I cracked up.
 CREST

Liz says: There is so much to be gained from not minding how many
passers by (most of whom you probably know) point and smile and
shake their heads. That way you're free to throw on the waders and
wander around in a frozen river on a day that was -20F when you woke
up, break off a beautifully scalloped chunk of ice, pose it on a bean bag
on the roof of your car so you can get the sunset behind it, and then
spend the next half hour snapping away. In the street. Still in your
waders.
 Snow on the Railroad Bridge
over the north branch of the Boyne River
MAP DETAIL: A Closer Look

30 January 2011
I see Liz sit at her computer studying these pictures.
When she named this one I couldn't understand where
the name came from until I looked into the ice. Ah yes.

HANDSPRING

It's amazing what you find when you look inside.

This was taken on 2 February 2011
Liz said: I went out under the dock last night with a flashlight and a lot of
clothing
Party Dress
 Lachryma Ursa Tincta

Inside Lake Street Market, Boyne City, Michigan

hanging in front of a stained glass window
Watching it melt and transform

There are lots of ways to be obsessed about ICE

 Random

Cosmos
 And the Last of This Series

Just stare at this one for a while.

This is all reflection, created by shining a flashlight down through some

elevated ice forms and then shooting the water underneath.
 Straits of Mackinac

Blue Mesa
One of many foot-thick slabs of blue ice tossed casually onto
the frozen surface of the Mackinac Straits. Other than
cropping and a slight punch to the contrast, I have done
nothing to this image--Lake Michigan and the sunset sky did
all the work.
Sun Dog Fish

Strewn about among and atop the giant slabs of ice at the Straits are
polished chunks. It seems odd that they are so smooth and yet not
frozen together by the water that must have smoothed them.
ICE ON FIRE Like cooling lava, but smoother. And blue. Yeah.
Sometimes it's hard for ME to believe there isn't fire inside that ice,
and I was the one out there trying to keep warm.

LITTLE PIECE
A Lake Michigan jewel doing its part to bend the sunset .
GOLD RUSH
Look into the edge during sunset and you find incredible blues filled
with streaks of gold.
Sunset Scrawled on Blue 1
Ever since the blue "agate ice" of Mackinac a month ago I have been obsessed
with looking for chances to shoot sunsets THROUGH the ice. Spent the last three
nights wading around in Lake Charlevoix, breaking ice and stacking it and trying
to force coolness. I was so consumed with this idea (which was nearly fruitless)
that I almost missed the insane beauty a few yards away that was just sitting there
waiting to be seen. The squiggle here is created by a lip edge of ice as it
transitioned from thicker (and higher) to thinner...this edge caught the sunset, and
the lines and variations in it are distorted mini-reflections of the line of old pilings
running across the lake further out.
Sunday
COSMOS
 Liz didn't know it, but I was sitting on a bench
on the shore watching her take about an hour
to set this up, wading around in her chest highs.

Here's her take on it:

Why I should stop trying to pose Mother Nature.

I went into the lake three nights in a row, trying to do a better job of this shot.
Never did. Found some other great ice, just as it was. So I have decided to
quit stacking, and go back to looking.
This is not a stunning image, but it provides context for those that follow.

The ice on Lake Charlevoix is melting, and until I got in it I hadn't thought about how
complicated a process that is. It doesn't simply become thinner and thinner until it
disappears. It actually becomes...well I was going to say porous, but I think fibrous is
more accurate if you indulge me about the "fibers" being relatively short. It is a giant
pack of ice splinters that remains mostly intact because the splinters have nowhere to go,
except on the edges. There they get pushed around and piled up by the moving water, or
heaved up in chunks by the wader-clad knee of a curious photographer. Once out of the
water and onto the surface, the chunks break apart with a merry tinkle. I wish someone
would come with me and shoot video.
During the golden hour, when the sun is pretty much sideways, it's hard for the light to
penetrate the mass of splinters that comprise the melting ice on the lake. But it glints all
over the uneven surface and the texture is amazing if you look closely. Fun to scoot
around on, too--it squishes like a bog. Just make sure you stay where it's not too deep if
you bust through!
SURFACE

During the golden hour, when the sun is pretty much sideways, it's hard
for the light to penetrate the mass of splinters that comprise the melting
ice on the lake. But it glints all over the uneven surface and the texture is
amazing if you look closely. Fun to scoot around on, too--it squishes like
a bog. Just make sure you stay where it's not too deep if you bust
through!
SURFACE DETAIL

It's fascinating to look into the ice when it's at this stage.
Monument:
Section detail of sunset sky through the holes.

The surface of Lake Charlevoix through the holes, with sunset sky reflection.
UNTIL NEXT YEAR

http://www.elizabethglass.com/