It was 50 degrees and climbing this morning when I headed to Lititz, which has been called the coolest small town in America. The Fire & Ice Festival begins tonight and I wanted to watch them carve the ice sculptures and take some photos.
As usual I got there way too early but eventually they began to massacre the blocks of ice with chainsaws, then use other tools to chisel out amazing detail. There was a large ice chair, a John Deere tractor and this one which will be a newspaper boy.
In hindsight I should have paid more attention to the background, used a very wide aperture, shot in manual and got closer ignoring the ice chips shooting everywhere. I knew they would be carving 72 more sculptures but I had no intention of waiting.
Being a perfectionist bordering on obsessive (see blog name) I have to learn to enjoy the experience, good photo, bad photo or no photo. Author Edmond Mbiaka wrote: “When it comes to perfection, the most that we could possibly do is to continuously push closer and closer to it. It is truly something to aim at, just to see how close you could get to it.”
I knew I should have got closer!
Photography OCD 
Ice, ice baby!
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I was watching the festival on the news earlier and a unicorn statue was dripping like crazy. By tomorrow afternoon it will be water-water baby! Thanks Lois.
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haha! thanks for the laugh, Mike!
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Last years festival was below 20 degrees in the morning with a strong wind. I took 5 photos and ran to my heated car. Today it was 60!
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global warming…..
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Yes but our President says global warming is a myth. Maybe that’s only in Washington.
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🙂
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I can well understand your OCD with Photography. I’m a bit the same, but since I can’t see in the LCD screen I’ve got to wait until I get home to download the shots onto a 27″ high resolution screen to find these type of ‘errors’ which we both seem to see in our images. I rarely notice them at the time of shooting.
Sometimes I think we are our own worst critics.
By the way, the above image is ‘just fine’, although you might have wanted to avoid the dark green background hedge blending in to his dark helmet from that distance OR, bobbing down slightly lower so his light-skinned face is outlined by the dark hedge and the dark helmet is outlined by the light space above the hedge (if you know what I mean)?
This is not intended to be a criticism, merely another way of shooting the subject.
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LOL! Its true that its very easy to miss all that stuff until you get home and its too late. Actually the main thing that bothered me was that I had to crop. They put up tents to protect the ice from the heat so it was hard to get a clear shot. The things you mentioned I can live with. I did enjoy the day and just have to learn not to be so fussy. Thank you for your support Vicki, I really appreciate it.
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You’re welcome 🙂
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We get some ice sculpturing once a while in our village in winter..
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I went back this morning and the detail is mostly gone because of the warm temperature. I’ll see how the melted unicorn I photographed looks later.
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I attended the 2019 Fire and Ice Festival in the town of Blue Ridge, Georgia yesterday (Feb 16). There was a chilli contest and ice sculptures plus live music. I haven’t downloaded the photos from my cameras yet.
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Yes there’s always a chili contest. I don’t think its the same company but I’m sure they do it the same way. Carve, then burn to smooth it out, right?
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Chainsaws and plenty of power tools. Shaving ice and wet, muddy grass but a great show!
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I look forward to seeing your photos.
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