We’ve been under an inversion for a few days and I haven’t felt much like making photographs. There wasn’t nice light to chase and it was too cold to stand out in a field otherwise. I’ve been out a few times since Christmas, but there hasn’t been anything blog worthy. Yesterday, the air cleared, and the inversion lifted. I took the opportunity to visit Utah Lake State Park to see the ice mounding on the eastern side of the lake. It’s been building for a few weeks now and I’ve seen a lot of photographs on my social media feeds. I wanted to venture out onto the lake surface and shoot isolated fragments of ice. I took one step out and immediately broke through and sank to my ankle. Not otherwise prepared with waders, I was confined to shooting from shoreline. It was precarious for a 62-year-old man tottering around on the slick ice blocks with a backpack full of camera gear and flailing a tripod in the air. Other than breaking through the lake surface, there were no other mishaps. It is rare that I find an occasion to use my ultra-wide lens. Since it was the ice blocks I was after, I chose to drop as low to the surface as possible and emphasize their mass and grandeur. The setting sun created a nice focal point and the contrasting colors of the warm sunset and cool shadows made nice compositional elements. These are great winter scenes to add to my portfolio.

Sun setting in the southwest sky at Utah Lake State Park

Refracted light in ice blocks at Utah Lake