After I sent out this photo, several people emailed back asking me what it was. They all used the same word, “amazing,” when told.
The story begins with the leafy canopy over our house. The tall, arching trees are beautiful, of course, and help to keep the house cool in the summer. But in the fall all those leaves clogged the gutters. So we installed leaf-shedding gutters. They were expensive, but they do work as advertised. Their secret? A smooth metal top lets the leaves slide over the gutter onto the ground.
In the winter, however, something else happens. As melt water runs down the roof and hits that cold metal top, icicles are born. This winter has been a good one for icicles; the house is rimmed with them, some quite beautiful.
The one in the photo is everyone’s favorite. It somehow caught the light in a way that made it look silvery, like “molten metal,” one person wrote.
I used a telephoto lens to shoot the icicles. It brought each one in close, while giving a shallow depth of field that left the backgrounds softly out of focus.