Interesting and strange ice formations. Happy New Year Mark :)

Surreal visions from my favorite "world watcher"! I used to love the icing over of the ponds and ocean in Labrador, which eventually gave us a short cut to our closest friends across the bay. I particularly like the glow of reminiscence in the lower panel. Happy New Year, my friend!

Eerie indeed; alien forms in our midst! Beautiful capture, and your postwork on the bottom gives a softness that's just lovely. Well done!

Fascinating image. Splendid!! Happy New Year!!

It is SO beautiful, Mark, and these are superb images....but WHY do people live where the temperatures are so extreme? Don't answer that..it's just little temperate, moderate old me musing!

These are so cool Mark, and I'd love to more info about these formations when you have time. Hope your having a good time with your family and can return soon. Keep safe and have a Happy New Year!

Ahhhh, the camera version is so true to form, color, light and detail. But the postworked version takes us to a new dimension...a place where life's details are muted and light emphasized. Just the way most of us would like life to be... Well done and Happy New Year Mark!

Water is so fascinating in this state - frozen in time. We've been having some bitterly cold days/nights well below zero. I'm grateful to have a nice warm home. Hope all is well with you and your family. And wishing you a wonderful New Year. :o) CC

I love the comparison shots. I do like the top one but there is much to be said about the mood created in the lower one.

A wonderful posting of this very cold but beautiful looking world. I can see three elephants standing in these cold waters with you making sure you get safely back to shore. I love both of these, the top one because of the ivory beauty and the lovely long trunks of ice and the bottom one with its ghostly feel. I hope you have a very happy and healthy year too.

WOW! Holy cow! This is one of those amazing pieces of work that I would absolutely PAY to make. WOW! As it so happens, I'm listening to "Bogurdzica" by Wojciech Kilar as I look at this and so I'm probably likely to ramble on a bit incoherently, or maybe not. And now that my little musical warning is out of the way, I have to say that this is amazingly surreal, compelling, beautiful, and every other descriptive word you can imagine. The lighting is flawless, the muted winter tones are superbly captured (and then, on top of it, superbly tweaked.) It's incredibly sensual: the flow of the ice, hardened like cooled wax, is just amazing. Zoomed is even better as I get to look around inside the ice structures and let my eye wander through light and shadows and colors that are so subtle but distinct. The tweaked version strikes me in the good way that lots of the best science fictional artwork has struck me. I've seen works like this in the pages of OMNI Magazine, and in relation to Carl Sagan's tv series Cosmos, where the exploration of such heavenly bodies as Halley's Comet inspired art of this sort. I love the way these images evoke THOSE references in my mind. This is like poetry, which proves that Winter is a poetic season. These twin shapes, like alien sculpture, alien growths, or just interesting ice structures are simply amazing. I'm reminded of things I once saw, sent back by the Voyager space probes from the icy moons of Jupiter: strange eruptions of ice from subsurface seas. Marvelous. Simply superb, and I most definitely look forward to seeing more of what you're able to post as time and circumstances permit. Marvelous stuff, and another instant favorite.

a beautiful winter sharing oh so unusual

OHHH WOW ! Finally they found the frozen Mammoths. :-D What a fabulous capture of the ice. It looks absolutely fantastic. I am so happy you posted this beautiful shot and I know you have more WILD amazing shots of the ice. I truely Hope you will post them too :-) Mark I hope everything will be ok. Hope you get alot of time for trad art in 2011. You do that so beautifully too.

Gorgeous, surreal, alien, inspiring, odd, beautiful - this is such a cool shot Mark! I love the way the light looks in your postwork. It takes on an Erie quality like Tara said- ha! Love the joke there :) Great work - you have such a great eye! Take good care :)

That's some serious icing. Fascinating!

SPLENDID IMAGE!

Stellar lighting and shadow, plus fine postwork-play on this very unusual subject matter, Mark! They may be groynes to everyone else, but the ones in the foreground are frozen elephants to me.

marvelous shots and work!!

These are marvelous! I love them both! Wonderful detail, POV, and composition! Superb depth and detail. The nearness and clarity of the one in the foreground makes me feel like I could reach out and touch it. I love the diagonal line going across and the smooth glossy texture. The one in the distance (also beautifully clear) makes me think of the folds of a fur coat. Wonderful brown tones in the ice and the horizontal lines in the distance. I like the trees, like bristles in the background. The postworked version sends me traveling from a world just within my knowledge of cold, to one far beyond it. A world of perpetual winter, where icy sentinels stand watch as structures of black crystalline lacework loom on the horizon. A world where humans can only travel in short journeys, (on good weather days) bundled in heavy gear against the elements. A world that will always be alien to them, hiding most of its soul. Beautiful images and postwork. Safe journeys, best wishes and a happy new year to you and your family.

You take something as hard and cold as ice and make it look like soft silk ribbon. It's impossible to really imagine what it looks like on your lake. As cold as it is there, I would love to see it for myself. You might have to thaw me out somehow later, but it would be worth it. This ice is magic and it creates forms that are unwordly and magic. I hope your travels will be safe and not too stressful.

This is such a great shot! The ice formations are so unique and makes me want to see the whole thing from all sides. I wish you the best this coming year.

You know those big candles? The really big ones that you can burn forever? And how the wax spills down the sides? That's what this makes me think of! The top image .. the bottom one is pure mystical fantasy .. gorgeous, surreal beauty.

A unique and original photograph, juxtaposed so beautifully with a different sense of style and artistry! I love the cold and icy, yet most protective and comforting feel about this image! It's got a beautiful radiance and glow..... The stillness and calmness is most inspiring and soothing... I really do admire the idea you've put to work here, ever so beautifully!

magnifique !

Happy New Year, Mark !!! Fascinating! :)