Icing in Godeanu

Autumn slowly gives way to winter. This feeling is especially strong in mountains, where streams and brooks start to freeze. The winter aims to destroy all movement and put it in cessation. This time of the year also provides a great potential for nature photographers.

When reaching the alpine zone you will find no running water. All streams are frozen solid. To obtain drinking water you need to melt it, or to carry bottled water on your pack.

Small rills running over rocks, almost invisible in summer, now decorate rocky escarpments along the forest road with hanging icicles.

Close look reveals simple, but great beauty, especially when the ice is hit by direct sunlight.

They appear to radiate, but actually they hang vertically. This is called paralel distortion for which our visual system automaticaly compensate. Our cameras don't, unless we use special tilt/shift lenses.

To maintain visual sea level, some of the icicles should be rendered straight on the image.

The best way to get an interesting image of the icicles is to get your camera position very close to your subject, or even behind them....

...and including the sun into the picture.

 Mountain streams begin to freeze. Close your diapragm down a use long shutter speed for silky effect on water. If you have a tripod it's simple. The image above was made with camera fixed on tripod.

 If you don't have tripod with you, brace your camera on a rock. Like I did in making the image above.

These places are most likely found in narow, deep valley which are far colder than areas higher on mountain slopes. In these days, the difference in temperatures between the valley floor and the top of a mountain can vary in between 10 to 15 °C.

Pools are remainig unfrozen, they are deep and large. Icing occurs only on the edges, where water touches cold rock.

Photography opportunities can not be exhausted in the mountains. For a devoted photographer there is no end of the season. When one season ends, the next one takes over.