Winter barely touched Seattle (so far), but when it did, it froze water mid-motion. I found the result rather spectacular. Water seemed frozen mid-pose. So starting with an Ice Dance seems appropriate.

Here’s nature’s interpretation.

I love that. I love the sunlight through leaf and ice, the hint of red and the verdant green, the veins of the leaf and the glowing outline of it. This is why I love photography: I can let nature do the art, and all I do is document.

The other thing I love about photography is what I see that I couldn’t see before, like the tiny patterns of air within ice.

What was too subtle to notice in the field becomes exquisitely visible in the image on the screen. And I love that.

Speaking of photos, you’ll want to watch the video for this one. Some very lovely photography, and truly delicious geology for your viewing pleasure. The song itself is subtle and wonderful and lives up to its name.

There’s something utterly fascinating about seeing water stopped in the act of slipping from a drip tip. And it wasn’t just one or two that had happened to have water on them when the cold hit – it was pretty much every leaf, especially on the rhodies along the street.

They were frosted, too, which led to their looking like winter confections. This one looks like a carousel to me, and I almost expect it to begin a stately turn.

And each tip seemed to have its own fascination, like this one, which looks as though a firework has frozen within it.

This is one of the most beautiful Tarja Turunen songs I know, and it seems appropriate here. Watch: once you get past some of the rather gothy things at the beginning, spectacular nature shots take over for the win.

Here’s a drip tip with quite a few designs within – what do you see?

And a wider view of the same leaves, showing the frost dusting the leaves.

Even in the grip of ice, the rhodies were set for spring. You can see they’ve been preparing, setting themselves to bloom as soon as the season turns.

In a few weeks, spring will begin, and then summer will come, and I’ll wonder what I ever saw in winter. But for right now, I’m wishing for more snow and ice. The world is a different place in winter. Magnificent.