Yesterday I flew back to DC from Dallas. The approach to DCA was up the Potomac from the south over the Wilson Bridge and past Old Town. It has been very cold, and the river is frozen along the shore and in the little inlets and other sheltered areas. From the air, the ice was spectacular. Because the water in the river is moving and the ice is thin, it had broken and been reformed and refrozen many times. The patterns in the ice told the story of the ice breaking, clumping, drifting along and then refreezing. I could not take any photos of the ice from the air, but I was inspired to find a place to get at least some ground level photos of the frozen river.
This morning I went to my favorite local photo spot, Dyke Marsh. The cove where the boats are moored was frozen, and I did get some good photos. Things did not start off well. I set down my primary camera while setting up the tripod. When I picked it up, the strap was tangled and I bobbled the camera. I thought it was OK, but on the first photo I tried to take, the camera informed me it could not talk to the lens. After getting over the anger and frustration of realizing my 24-70 needs to go off to the lens hospital, I pulled the little G10 out of the glove box and put it on the tripod. Using the smaller camera was difficult with half frozen fingers, but I think the pictures came out well.
The morning was crisp but not as cold as I had feared (though I saw no one else and I felt a bit crazy tramping along the shore managing to find at least one unfrozen mud puddle with my boot). I was also amused to see a fox taking advantage of the ice and using it as a short cut across the marsh.
These photos have a lot of detail, click on them to view larger versions.