This might be the longest stretch that I have gone without taking a photo of Marblehead in almost ten years. I had influenza for the first time in my life and finally appreciated just how awful that virus can be. We all receive the vaccine annually and, while it is nowhere near 100% effective, my wife and daughter did not get the flu so that was a small win.  It took longer than expected to recover from that illness and I had absolutely no interest in venturing out during the recent arctic blast so I was content with letting the camera sit on the shelf…until last night.

I had returned home from work last night and noted the clouds forming as sunset approached. With all signs pointing towards a nice sunset, I decided to grab my gear and head out to Redd’s Pond. I knew the pond had frozen and wasn’t sure if it would remain so with the coming warmup so figured this would be a good opportunity to capture it. Plus, I figured that if sunset really did come through, I could use the ice to reflect those colors.

I arrived at Redd’s to find several adults and kids on the ice taking advantage of conditions for a sunset skate. I set up and explored different compositions until I spotted this interesting formation in the ice and decided to use it as a focal point of the image. As luck would have it, sunset came through with soft pinks reflected in the clouds overhead and the familiar red house across the pond served to reflect the setting sun in its large windows.

I normally take a hiatus from social media/posting for the month of February so I’ll see if I happen upon more interesting scenes in the month ahead and will share them in March…