Icicles, Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah

This image is among my best of the year 2011. Simplicity and color are two reasons this image is successful.
I was fortunate to eye this subject. As is often the case, investigating one subject leads to the discovery of another subject. In this instance a more vivid flash of color in some nearby ice drew my attention. After making several photographs of colorful reflections in streamside icicles, I had the feeling I had not really nailed it, I hadn’t been able to express myself through the subject. Just then, I looked up to see this arrangement of icicles right in front of my face.
Of course, the background is as important to the success of the image as the subject. The background was sufficiently distant to render as diffuse swaths of color, an effect that attractively isolates the subject as well as presents the background in a way the eye doesn’t quite see it; helping to move the photograph away from the realm of documentation and towards the realm of art.
I love the tension between the warm and cool tones. At first glance, it may seem generic, but this color scheme is highly dependent on the season; the warm tones are supplied by the late October hues of the surrounding forest.