Shore To Shore #15274

The Story

On a sunny winter afternoon, a lake lies deeply frozen under thick ice after many days of strong cold. But the following sunny days and very cold nights have begun to work the ice, causing deep stress cracks and rifts that meander across the entire frozen lake surface. Created over many days, they go from shore to shore like highways across the land, caused by the freeze/thaw cycles of the winter days and freezing nights.

Black and white turned out to be the strongest way to photograph this lay of nature not many get to see or even hear, for that matter. While shooting, the thick frozen lake ice made an array of sounds. They went from the typical cracking you’d expect to long, deep booms coming from further out and under.

A picture can’t convey them, but the sounds were visceral and primordial, something not many experience. The muffled booms resonated under the ice, seeming to come from the deeper water farther out, sometimes like a summer thunder rolling in from the distance. The ice would also sigh quietly as it worked under the winter sunlight, and it was near to a living thing itself.

Location: Glendale Lake, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks