On New Year’s Eve, I walk through the site of the State College festivities on my way to work and take pictures of the ice sculptures.

Here’s 2007’s best photo:
ice sculpture

And my 2008 favorite:
ice sculpture

But here’s what the 2009 sculptures looked like this morning:

ice sculpture

ice sculpture

They’ve changed the format, and instead of the sculptures being done by New Year’s Eve, the crowd gets to watch the sculptors work. At least this year it is neither bitterly cold nor raining.

I walked through last night, and the big blocks of ice were all wrapped up in their protective insulating blankets. The little ones were done – I believe they carve them elsewhere and bring them in finished, since they don’t require many blocks of ice.

ice sculpture

ice sculpture

Night-time photography is always interesting, but my Sony alpha does an excellent job in low-light conditions, barring a tendency to turn everything orange. (I have a photo of Morgan that makes him look like he’s in flames.) I’m certain I can overcome that if I learn which settings to tweak.

I hope you all have a fabulous evening of whatever sort you find most congenial, and I’ll see you next year.

One response to “Ice sculptures”

  1. vampiress Avatar
    vampiress

    i believe you want to tweak white balance. they all call the settings something different, but the white balance settings should make sense tungsten, daylight, cloudy, etc.

    neato ice sculptures. i hope to go out this year and check out the rose bowl floats.

Welcome!

I’ve been doing stuff with string for quite some time, and describing it to others online since 1996 or so at Phiala’s String Page.

I also do some science and write some fiction.

I’m Phiala most places on the internet.