Invasion!

We're being invaded...by pancake ice!

This morning the water was mostly clear of frozen debris...there were maybe a few slushy spots, but nothing more to speak of.

When I got to school this afternoon for a quintet meeting, I could see sharp bands of white backed by dark gray edging the horizon...

Then, when I finished my work at the library a couple hours later, those bands had moved substantially inland...the white indicating the front of a steadily-advancing, amoebic, plane of segmented ice pancakes. What a sight! I stood on top of a boulder for a good half hour watching this strange life-like mass of freeze moving almost imperceptibly closer...and closer. It was almost scary.

The birds kind of seemed to like it. Little flocks of them were clustered in a little lee of ice that seemed to be advancing slower than the rest of the mass.

And check out this happy couple...

These guys must have some serious insulation!

Permanent waterproof down coats--not bad I guess.

I really have no idea where all this came from...or why the edge of the front is white while its body is dark gray...hmmm. Always more questions! Maybe the lake starts freezing further north and then when there's no more space to fill, it sort of drifts on down to the south. Before I left for Ithaca at the beginning of December, I bemoaned the thought that I'd have to miss watching Lake Michigan freeze. I really wanted to know how the process of solidifying such a large body of water began and progressed. Well...looks like my hypothesized pancake-ice idea panned out (rather than the edges out process that occurs in smaller ponds).

I can't wait for sunrise tomorrow!

Sunrise #5...And Topographical Ice

Today began beautifully...

And I'm glad I wasn't the only one around to appreciate it...

I know morning comes early for everyone (yes, including me), but sometimes I'm still surprised how few people ever get up to watch this daily spectacle. There should be little crowds gathering at the lake shore every morning, chatting...drinking their coffee...walking their dogs...and ensuring that whatever else happens in the hours to come, the day began with beauty.

Before any real sunrise action started to take place, I wandered up and down the shoreline searching for an interesting angle or feature to highlight for the blog. The waves were enormous and crashed up against the ubiquitous giant piles of old concrete with a vengeance sending fountains of spray several feet into the air and coating the bouldery barrier with a thick layer of ice. I noticed something odd about how the ice had formed around these chunks. Rather than a smooth single layer, it had built up around each rock's contours like a topographical map...

It almost looked to me as though a portion of the Earth's scenic program was degrading back into code...pixel by pixel...EVIDENCE that our lives are all a big illusion! Maybe God is just some nerdy programmer geeking out on humanity from his little cubicle in the sky...

Well, ok...probably not. But it still looks pretty funky!

I have another (possibly better) hypothesis as to why this has happened. I'll bet it has something to do with the surface tension of water.

When a wave crashes against the boulders...

...and giant splashes of water reach up and over their rocky tops...

BRRRR! That's cold!!!

...a second before freezing, the water might pool up in little puddles wherever it finds a flatish surface on which to reside. The edges of these puddles would defined by a tiny ridge due to surface tension (if you don't know what I mean by this, spill some water on the floor and get right down next to it...the little roundish edges on the droplets and puddles are caused by surface tension). Because it's SO FREAKIN' COLD here, it wouldn't take these puddles long to freeze--maybe just a few seconds. The frozen puddle would provide a nice, clean, flat surface for the next puddle to build upon, and voila! In no time at all the rocks are encased in a series of frozen puddles.

This is just my own personal hypothesis...if anyone else knows the truth, I'd love to hear it!

In the meantime...have a great day!

Daily Sunrise #4

I realized this morning what a challenge it will be to keep this theme interesting for y'all. It's one thing to watch a sunrise in person, quite another to view a string of pictures all shot from the same location of the same predictable event with the major variations seeming to consist only of the shape of the clouds and the size of the waves. You'll have to trust me that every once in a while (like Monday and Tuesday this week...when I wasn't able to shoot!) there are some really unusual and surreal sunrises. In between those anomalies I'll have to try to be creative with how I present the beginnings of days. There's a reason that predawn to sunrise is my favorite time of day. It will be my mission to make you understand why.

I was really glad today was Saturday because that meant I could just drive my car in to school rather than having to walk. Normally I have no problem with walking. In fact, I quite enjoy it. It's a great way to get my blood pumping just enough so my body's primed and ready for the rest of the day's activities. However, when the wind chill is -10 degrees, it's generally a bit more pleasant to travel via automobile than by foot.

I'm sure the only reason the lake hasn't yet frozen over again is that the water is turbulent enough to keep the solid ice at bay. Instead, gigantic slush-filled waves roll towards shore...unstoppable behemoths that seem to resonate subsonically as they surge past.

I sit on the shore in awe of my smallness against such immensity.

A flock of geese flies by...struggling with persistent and bitter winds as they make a much-belated push towards warmer lands in the south.

Good luck guys!

Here comes the sun...

I watched the increasing daylight until the sun finally reached above the clouds and made further viewing to the east impossible. I then collected my things and headed back in to the music building to begin the day.

While walking upstairs after a stop at my locker I snapped this little shot of window condensation just for fun. This is what my glasses look like every time I come in from the cold!

#3...Or: the "Energizer" Sunrise

The weather this morning said it'd be cloudy all day so I didn't expect to get much of a sunrise this morning. I was getting ready to post something like: "I promise these will get better!"

When I arrived--just before the actual sunrise, that today occurred at 7:18--things looked pretty bleak, though there were a few more interesting features than yesterday. For one thing the water was pretty turbulent. All that motion plus the fact that our temps haven't been getting much lower than the low 20s lately has pretty much eliminated any surface ice from the lake. A few spots showed signs of slush, but certainly not the reflective plane that had existed early in the week.

Good 'nuff...

I went inside to collect my things and prepare to practice.

Not 5 minutes later I looked outside and saw...color! Hey...gotta run out and get a shot of that!

I ran out in nothing but a light sweater and snapped a few satisfying shots.

Not 3 minutes later I looked outside and...Wow! What awesome cloud formations!

Not 2 minutes later I looked again and...holy crap! This thing is really getting good!

Rather than take the time to run outside, I hunkered down in the lounge watching the sun illuminating the clouds and snapped pics through the glass as the spectacle unfolded (if you look closely you can see the reflections).

It just kept going...

...and going...
...and going...

Finally, the thrill subsided and I headed into the practice room. 'Bout time I get busy anyway.

Your Daily Sunrise...#2

...and then there are days that common street lamps are able to outshine the star that powers and sustains life on our planet. Today's "sunrise" mirrors my own mood: nondescript, clouded over, not quite able to shine as brightly as I would like. I don't want to continue the metaphor too long, but another with a penchant for finding symbolism in nature's cycles might make the assertion than one could gain comfort from such a gray sunrise: it shows that even the brightest among us is occasionally confounded by obscuring clouds and struggle. Gray days like this come along every so often, but sooner or later the clouds are bound to break and light will once more dance across the water.

Your Daily Sunrise...#1

I know I've posted many sunrise pictures before (and many sunrise-over-Lake-Michigan pictures for that matter), but today I'm starting something different, and from here on out, each sunrise--whether over the lake or not--will be given a number.

I've added a New Year's resolution to my short list...well, my list of one that is: flossing, remember? (so far so good by the way). I want to see (and ideally photograph and share) the sunrise every morning. Why?

1. The best way I've found to deal with the cold is to find a way to hope it gets colder. I am SO EXCITED to see the lake freeze that when we have a slightly warmer night (like last night) and all the accumulated surface turns once again to slush, it's a bit of a let down. Let's get some single digits tonight...PLEASE!

2. I will be so incredibly busy this quarter that I need a designated sit-back-in-awe time to use as a buffer against my own tendency to melt down over everything. Sunrise is time for my spirit to recharge and my eyes to relax and look off into a glorious distance before I train them on computer screens, reading materials, and sheet music for the rest of the day.

3. I'm not really gonna have a chance to blog much. There's just too much to do. So having a predictable sequence of photos to post will give me a small way to share something of my creative self with someone else.

4. I am simply in love with Lake Michigan and I don't want to miss a single moment!

So enjoy: #1 (and remember--click on the image to see it larger!)

What a Day to Lose the Batteries!

This is just a quickie...maybe better suited to a format like facebook (shudder), but I just have a couple minutes and have to whine to you about something EXTREMELY annoying.

You should have SEEN the sun this morning!!!!!! It rose as a deep orange globe casting a straight column of color across an even-more-iced-over Lake Michigan. You know how I took all those great pictures yesterday? Well, it killed the batteries in my camera and I didn't have any spare AAs with me...so I MISSED being able to capture and share this incredible image!

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I'll be on my way to the store directly to pick up a few.

My SWE (symphonic wind ensemble) audition today went ok. I played really well except for 2 key high notes--one at the end of Copland's Outdoor Overture (dangit!), and one at the end of his Ceremonial Fanfare (double dangit...even though the rest of this particular excerpt went better than I'd ever done it before...yay for that at least?). The Pines of Rome bits were my strongest--if (a BIG if!) I end up with a solo on SWE's upcoming recording, I'm betting on Pines...I was hoping for Outdoor Overture though...oh well.

Ice Art

It's must be obvious already that I have loads of fun playing with my camera, but lately I've been going even further with how artistically I approach a scene or image. I have to admit I'm quite proud of the photos I created today of a slushy Lake Michigan...this one in particular:

I love the subtlety of color playing against a surprising diversity of texture. I love the anomalous snowball (no I didn't place it there) framed by an approaching wave on one side and a receding one on the other...gives it a flare of modernism in its form. I love the glint of sunlight on the lugubriously rippled water and the shadows cast in front of the snowball and wave. I love the idea that maybe most people wouldn't give a second glance to this hidden--and on the surface, rather mundane--grouping of features, but that I was able to pick them out and frame them so that the eye can perceive them as a beautiful whole.

Here's another ice photo I took this afternoon during a walk through Lakeshore Park:

This depicts an area, I'd guess, less than six inches across. In this case I'll admit to a bit of tampering: I came upon a frozen stream of broken ice--giant lethal-looking shards--and put a couple together--one on top of another with a third placed to the side--to create the final product. What initially struck me was the interesting dispersement of bubbles, but as I further composed the image, I noticed that the flowing lines and subtle frosty surface texture played nicely against the bold (and oddly symmetrical) geometry of the circular air pockets.

So although my drawing efforts have unfortunately diminished over the last couple of years, I'm glad at least to recognize I still have a decently artistic eye. I haven't given up drawing and still continually aspire to find inspiration and active motivation somewhere, but in the meantime I'll probably just keep playin' with the camera.