Candle Ice

July is candle ice season on the lakes, as the last of the winter ice cover gradually thins and becomes porous, resulting in fragile blocks made of pieces that look rather like glass candlesticks. When the wind suddenly picks up, as it did here, the shifting ice makes a lovely tinkling sound.

In order to get the effect seen in this photo, I shot this with a tripod and a shutter speed of 1/6th of a second. The large piece of ice in the centre was resting on the bottom and thus stayed relatively motionless, while the ice all around it was thrashing in the wind-blown chop.