TECHNICAL DETAILS
Early spring sunset on melting ice, Centerville Lake, Anoka County, Minnesota, 2016
Leica D-Lux (Typ 109) Focal length: 10.9mm (actual) ISO 200 1/13 at f/11 On a MeFoto backpacker tripod. Processed with a luminosity mask to bring up the treeline in Photoshop CC. General exposure correction and color balancing in Lightroom CC.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
SPRING
The change of seasons always call a photographer to capture the moments in between the expected. I knew the other evening that it may well have been my last opportunity to walk on to the frozen surface of Centerville Lake for this winter (sic) season. And so on an unexpectedly warm Sunday evening, capping an unexpectedly warm weekend in an unexpectedly warm beginning to March, I walked down at sunset to the lake to see what light I could find. On first arrival, the light was far from spectacular, the sun still too high and shadows overly harsh. Even with a number of people fishing out on different parts of the lake, I ventured out on the ice with some trepidation. At the spot I first walked out, there is a slight flow between a nearby pond and the lake. The water movement, I presume, makes for treacherous conditions, because I found the footing quite rotten, in places I could see down through cracks or openings into the black. I backed off and walked farther down the lake to where the shoreline is more open and there is little movement in the water. There, the pock-marked surface was not as foreboding and I walked out a hundred meters gingerly. Needless to say, it was a bit slippery! I found a spot where there were old snowmobile tracks worn into the surface running roughly parallel to shore. The sun had lowered below the horizon, and the blue of the ice with the last orange of the sunset made for perfect oppositional colors. I bracketed exposures all over the spectrum, and moved tripod positions high and low to try to catch the right reflection in the irregular surface pools. Finally, the light faded and we walked back home along the Chain of Lakes path in the deep dusk. I’ll not be out on the ice until fall.
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