IN THE FIELD: The Heat Is On
We are in the midst of a heat wave where I live. For most of the week it’s been extremely humid with temperatures in the high 80’s to low 90‘s, with no relief coming anytime soon. When it is hot like this, I just want to stay inside and stick my face in a bowl of ice cubes.
Ice cubes? Hey….not a bad idea…and I might as well have some fun with the camera while I’m cooling off.
I started by putting a bunch of ice cubes in a glass bowl and placed it on the table. I mounted the camera on the tripod due to the low light levels indoors and the resulting slow shutter speeds. I took a few shots…the ice looked like ice…cool and refreshing, but it wasn’t very exciting.
Then I wondered what kind of effect I could create by illuminating the ice with some kind of light source. I used the flash, but the result wasn’t very dramatic. I even photographed the ice with various colors of acetate held in front of the flash. The ice took on some color, but it was too subtle for what I was trying to achieve.
I needed something more reflective to scatter the light among the ice cubes. So I turned up the volume on my thinking cap and remembered I had some battery-operated glow sticks. I dumped the ice cubes into a stainless mixing bowl, turned on the glow sticks and shoved them into the melting ice. The glow sticks were just the ticket.
This photo was not manipulated in any way. It is straight out of the can.
F11
1/15th
ISO 400
cloudy WB
David Heilman 
Of course you realize that now that corny song is stuck in my head but “cool” effect here 😉
It’s “cold as ice”, when you step into an “early morning cold taxi”, and break into a “cold sweat”, “baby it’s cold outside”, especially when there’s “cold rain and snow.”
That didn’t even occur to me until I read your comment Hee Hee.
I asked for this didn’t I? 😉
Couldn’t resist!
so beautiful dear David, Thank you, have a nice day and week, love, nia
Glad you enjoyed this one Nia, it was a lot of fun. Have a great week!
N’ice’ 🙂
Great play on words there “M”!
Wow, that’s amazing! It looks like a textured painting. I love it! A photo that you can drink afterwards has got to be good! The heat has spread across the Atlantic and we’ve got it here now, too – it looks set to continue for a week at least.
It was fun to do on an extremely hot day. And I did use some of the ice in a glass of lemonade when I was finished! If you try this…hold your ears as you dump the ice cubes into a stainless bowl. It’s pretty loud LOL!
Very cool, David (no pun intended)! Great color combination too.
Thanks Gracie, this was probably the most “refreshing” shoot I’ve done LOL. I purchased the light sticks at the big box store whose name begins with an “L”. I think they were six bucks each and come with the battery installed. One end has a white flashlight, the stick part glows whatever color the stick is, and you can make it blink with another push of the button.
This is stunning! At first I thought it was a dish of jelly in colours the like of which I had never seen before – and then I read your text. Neat idea -now to find some glow sticks…….not sure if we have them here….. 🙂
Thanks MB, it was a lot of fun playing. When I first started the ice cubes were frosty so the colors were more subdued. I then trickled some water over the cubes and they smoothed out and the colored light became much more intense. You probably could find the light sticks in a hardware store. The ones I used are made by Energizer…the battery folks.
Our Dollar Tree store (where everything is $1.00) has multiple kinds of the type you see people wearing at fairs, etc. Not battery operated but cheap, and they come in many colors.
Your $ store sounds way better than ours. Ours never has any good stuff.
Love what you can do with glow sticks. Good idea to pour water over the ice , making it more translucent.And it is cooling as I now look at it.
Maybe I’ll post a photo or two of the frosted ice. Those are pretty cool shots too and actually look more like ice LOL. Glow sticks are fun…I can’t wait till the temps cool off at night…I’ve got some neat ideas….
Very creative! It turned out to be a very cool shot!
It was fun to play around indoors on a hot afternoon. I wonder what I could come up with today…..hmmm
I loved this photo David! 🙂
Thanks Nandini, I love playing with light and reflections…let’s see…what should I do next.? Hmmmmmm
Absolutely FANTASTIC, David. It’s like an abstract painting. I LOVE the colors and textures.
Thanks John, with this heat it’s time to play indoors! Time to get creative!
Like Like Like 🙂 Hope it cooled down a little bit 🙂 it’s hot here in London 🙂 we are having our first proper summer in 7 years! 🙂
It sure has cooled down…great sleeping weather at night and the daytime has been perfect. Light breezes and temps in the high 70’s to low 80″s…just as summer should be!