Well, it's a sort of water isn't it?

I've been looking at different water ideas for the last few days, and as Geoff pointed out - either I take a brilliant version of the same typical water shot or I do something 'different'.

Well, I decided to give different a try.

Now I knew ice would be a trial and error thing so I decided I'd make a couple of different attempts and prove out a few ideas before going to far.

First problem with ice is that it tends to go white when you freeze it. Great for a cocktail, not so good if you want to photograph things embedded in it. Dermot suggested boiling the water first - something about getting the minerals and such out of it - so I gave that a try.

And after explaining to my patient and understanding wife as to why all the plastic containers in the house were now in the freezer filled with bits of leaf and flower, I got to break the first one out tonight.

Before I go on I have to say, these are proofing shots to see what the idea might look like with decent lighting and composition. All I was interested in tonight was seeing how the ice actually looked!

Ice in Container

When I lifted this one out, I was a little disappointed by the whiteness of the ice. It was by no means as white as the typical ice cube, but it still wasn't 'clear'.

Still when broken out of the plastic box, it was better than I first thought.

I took a few sample shots with an off camera flash at different angles. Here's the best of them.

Samples

So, what do I think?

• I'd like the ice to be a little clearer
• These aren't sharp enough (but I was shooting freehand using a +10 closeup filter indoors with an off camera flash lying on the table)
• To much petal, not enough ice

I've reset this container, with less petals this time to allow more of the ice to stand out. I've also boiled the water a lot more to make it clearer (I hope). I've also reduced the amount of water I used - I wonder if it will work better with less water and thinner ice as a result?

One final thing I might change is the composition, I've been considering getting really close up until now, but I wonder how this would look with a rose bud or something in a block of ice... Might be time to look for another container.