Promise of Life.
Beauty of Eternal Love.
Fragrance of Divine Light. ~Ally.
This weeks theme for @kus-knee's Mundane as Art photo contest is Ice.
Frozen Roses.
The world around us is nothing more and nothing less than a mirror of what we have become from within. ~Gregg Braden.
Beneath the surface of the ice.
The great challenges of life appear to us when, and only when, we have everything we need to survive and heal from the experience. ~Gregg Braden.
Frozen flowers.
My work with 'frozen flowers' began soon after the completion of a two year project: Designing, producing and installing an environmental sculpture using orgonite as my medium. I'll share the journey of this sculpture at Steemit ~ Eventually.
The introduction to working with water and ice came about when I wanted to verify the energetic properties of orgonite.
The experiment.
- Fill a Pyrex jug with pure water.
- Place a piece of orgonite next to the jug. Leave the arrangement for a few hours.
- Place the jug of water into a freezer. Allow it to freeze overnight, without disturbing it.
- A vortex will emanate from the centre of the frozen ice.
Conclusions.
Perhaps the vortex in the ice was formed as a result of the energy transference of the orgonite to the water. However a control jug of pure water without any orgonite placed next to it, still produced a similar looking vortex.
So for me the experiment was disappointingly 'null and void.' However, I was totally hooked by the absolute beauty of the vortex: Lines of tiny air bubbles in the ice ~ Regardless.
Initially my 'frozen flowers' were influenced by the visually spectacular work of Mo Devlin.
In her article How to do Photography of Frozen Flowers Megan Kennedy illustrates how she creates and photographs her 'frozen flowers.' ~Ally. Source: Ten Days of Reflection: Roses in Ice.
Megan's method is much the same that Mo employs. My methods are different again to both, as I work in reverse. Mo uses a light box to photograph his work whereas Megan describes how she uses the natural light from her apartment window. My methods for using backlighting have been similar to Megan's. ~Ally. Source: Ten Days of Reflection: Roses in Ice.
It wasn't long before the designs of my 'frozen flowers' started to evolve: Influenced by:
- My love of symbolism and in particular the 11:11.
- My love of layering and transparency.
The biggest leap forward was when I acknowledged that freezing fresh flowers, regardless of the resulting images, wasn't for me. The solution now is to freeze layers of inorganic bits and pieces, stones and lichens etc as my backgrounds and place the live flowers/plants more on the surface.
Thanks so much 
Mundane as Art.
Mundane as Art: Round 8: Sand Patterns.
Mundane as Art: Round 9: Moss and Lichens.
Ephemeral Art and Photographs: ©Alison Lee Cousland.
Camera: Nikon Coolpix.