Shot of the Month - 2026

“Depth” - January 2026
20mm 1/125sec f/5.0 ISO 80

I captured “Depth” almost entirely by luck while hiking on a frozen lake in Rocky Mountain National Park with my parents over the 2025 Christmas holiday. I was playing with some camera motion shots that DID NOT turn out where I was spinning my camera with a slower shutter speed to try and create a spiraling Star Wars hyperspace effect. “Depth” was the result of a test shot where I was checking my camera settings more than anything and no camera motion was involved.

What I liked about this image was the layers that were present without the help of digital processing or fancy camera techniques (exposure stacking specifically). On the top layer (closest to the camera and most visible at the top of the image) there’s a layer of more liquid looking ice, maybe from where I had knelt just a minute or so prior. A layer deeper looked like rising air bubbles, caught in motion by freezing water on their way to rejoin the atmosphere. Finally, at the deepest layer, there were some larger air bubbles that looked like gigantic blueberries! Those blueberries were the inspiration for the color tone of the whole image - I wanted to emphasize their shape and texture, so I color-graded the whole image with purple and blue hues while making the blacks super deep.

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