Ice floor

I recommend anyone who is interested in landscape photography to find and explore a ‘local patch’. For me there are 4 requirements for such a local patch:

• It must be close to home.
• It must be suitable for sunrises and/or sunsets; in practice this means that there must be enough far horizon.
• It must have sufficient foreground variation, i.e. different structures to experiment with.
• There must be water, for instance a small lake or large ditch, for working with reflections.

Mine is open heath area with a pool surrounded by forest. It is reachable within 6 minutes (5 minute drive and 1 minute walk), and is suitable for sunrises (not so much for sunsets). Why is a local patch important? Just count the number of really dramatic sunrises or sunsets in a year, may be there are 10 if you are lucky. On these 10 occasions, how many times are you able to witness it with your camera? I am optimist, so let’s say 3? Then you’d better be fast and prepared! Anyhow, here is my local patch with an ice floor on the pool. Sunrise is nice, with a pinkish winter sky reflected in the ice, but not dramatic.

* Canon EOS 5D Mark II with 17-40mm/f4 @ 20mm; ISO-200, f16, 2s; polarization filter and 2 stop ND gradient filter; from tripod.
* Canon EOS 5D Mark II with 17-40mm/f4 @ 20mm; ISO-200, f16, 0.5s, +0.3 stop; 2 stop ND gradient filter; from tripod.