Tuesday, March 19, 2024

The things we find in gutters

Frozen in the abstract
London, ON
March 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I call it gutter ice, and we came close to having none of it over the course of this bizarrely warm, El Niño-fed, climate-change-tinged winter.

It takes a very specific set of conditions for gutter ice to develop: some kind of wet precipitation, just enough - but not too much - water accumulation, followed by a fast overnight freeze.

Then, there’s a tiny sliver of time in the morning to shoot the impossibly thin ice before it either melts or gets crushed by traffic.

It never got cold enough for long enough this year. Until yesterday, when winter decided on a late-season brush of wind and white. I found this one around the corner from the house just before it disappeared in a puddle.

It seems weird to seek random sheets of ice in the dusty corners of crumbling streets. Conventional wisdom, after all, dictates that great photography and great stories don’t take root on dirty asphalt.

I suppose that might be true, but I’ve never really subscribed to conventional wisdom, anyway. And I’d rather choose my own subjects and stories, too.

Even if I have to chase them across dusty, near-frozen streets.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #onstorm #water #ice #frozen #winter #walkabout #actofdog #nature #naturephotography #abstract #stilllife #monochrome #photography #apple #iPhone #shotoniphone #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #nofilterneeded


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