A golden winter sunrise highlighted the delicate ice crystals on Ellen’s kitchen window.
Inspired by a Freeman Patterson photograph, she spent the next six weeks photographing the ephemeral frozen patterns. ‘Sometimes the sunlight erased the designs by midday,’ she says, ‘but each morning I’d get a new surprise’. With an outdoor temperature of around -26°C, cold air seeping in through a leaky seal rapidly cooled the window pane, causing moisture in the warm indoor air to freeze onto the glass. The resulting ice crystals, known as frost ferns, nucleate around imperfections such as scratches or residual soap streaks, creating these patterns.
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Ellen’s goal is to stimulate others to pause and appreciate the beauty and wonder of Earth. Her images are included in several collections, and have been showcased in galleries and used in numerous publications. She teaches, leads photographic and processing workshops, and is a member of the North American Nature Photography Association.
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