Transforming Ice, Water, Mud, Sunlight, and a Twig into Modern Art

The above photo taken yesterday at Mapleside Farms in Brunswick, Ohio is called “Mineral Water” and carries on a wintertime tradition of mine involving the creation of abstract art by using an ice-covered pond for inspiration.

It can be quite a challenge in Northeast Ohio to get decent sunset photos during the winter. The weather tends to be so overcast that there’s even a local folk song the gist of which describes Cleveland as the land of “a hundred shades of gray.”

Yesterday, when the sun finally came out and the clouds were magnificent dramatic billows in the sky, was a cause for celebration. So what caught the attention of my camera? The humble muddy edge of an ice-covered pond with an embedded twig and weak sunlight playing across the surface. Awesome!

Below is the original photo.

With the help of Photoshop, nature can become surreal to the point of unrecognizability and abstract to the point of one’s own imagination.

Question for Readers: Have you ever used nature photography as a starting point to create fantastic, otherworldly, surreal, or abstract effects? Please feel welcome to describe your venture from nature photography into art, or alternatively, your preference for realistic nature scenes.