Minnehaha Creek winds through Minneapolis a couple of miles from my house. In the winter, it freezes… then thaws… freezes again…. thaws again… over and over. When the temperature takes a deep plunge, the new ice that quickly forms can be beautifully clear – but it may not last long.
There’s a constant battle going on, between the water and the ice. Most years there’s enough water flowing in the creek that it never freezes solid. The ice may seem to win for a while, but with the aid of the sun, the water reasserts itself.
The ice cracks, splits, fills with bubbles, shatters, and is blown around in little pieces skating on top of big pieces. It becomes a jigsaw puzzle.
One day, walking by the creek, I looked more closely at that crazy ice and the black water beneath it, and saw a photography subject.
Shattered crystal, with a fractal quality of progressively tinier pieces, and maybe a bit of Jackson Pollock.
Here the water runs free again for a day as winter, never giving up, encroaches from the bank.
The milky layers in the upper right of this image made me think of a distant galaxy, seen through the Webb Telescope. And the zig-zagging band of ice cutting across it could be an interstellar radio signal.
These situations are perfect for abstracts. I could not help it, after looking at the first image, but think how slippery those rocks covered with ice must be.
While doing photos like this, rule #1 is: don’t end up in the water.
I love your description of the ice freezing, thawing and refreezing as a battle. And the description of it like a jigsaw puzzle.
I can’t really say much about the analogy to Pollock’s work, but my favorite of these is the first one. I also appreciate your description of the ice versus water – you should write more! You seem to have a knack for words.
Years ago, some math types claimed proof that Pollock’s work had fractal properties – meaning there was structure that repeated at different scales. I’m somewhat skeptical, but here’s a link:
https://blogs.uoregon.edu/richardtaylor/2016/02/08/fractal-analysis-of-jackson-pollocks-poured-paintings/