Breaking the ice

The ice cap on the Baltic Sea begins to break up in the Åland archipelago © Rob Watkins

I love the ice sheet that covers the Baltic Sea in the Winter. But it can make for rather dull pictures. It can just look a little like a huge snow-covered plain and not the sea at all.

When Winter starts to fade and the ice begins to crack it becomes much more interesting photographically. And it’s at its very best when the ice is about to disappear completely and significant gaps being to appear making really beautiful patterns.

The picture above was taken at the end of March as the ice cap began to disappear. The problem I had was that I really wanted to capture a picture that looked like a sea full of ice and at this time there are huge gaps of open water and rather thin bands of ice.

I chose to crop in a little through the viewfinder, cut out the horizon and waited with my camera ready until enough ice flowed through to fill my frame. I was taking a bit of a chance and I had to wait about 10 minutes for the perfect moment but it was worth it when I captured this image…

This picture is available to buy from alamy.com by searching for ‘rob watkins ferry’