Psychedelic crystals captured in melting ice movie

[Nipuna]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfvZA6EyI7s[/media]

If seeing ice melt sounds as dull as watching paint dry, you are lacking imagination. A time-lapse video by photographer Shawn Knol brings out scintillating hidden structures using two polarising filters and an extreme close-up view.

Knol uses an LED computer monitor as a polarised light source, then attaches a circular polarising filter to his camera's macro lens. Rotating the filter creates the rainbow effect as varying thicknesses of ice refract the light differently. "Viewing the crystals through my camera is like looking through to another world," he says.

The melting ice, which Knol photographed in his living room, snapping a shot about every second, was a challenge to capture. "As the ice melts, it likes to move around on a cushion of water," says Knol. He tried to keep the ice still by raising it on a wire cooling rack, but it still slides slightly, which makes the video look like a panning shot.

Despite the difficulties, Knol has filmed other slippery characters using the same polarised light technique, including soap bubbles and magnesium sulphate crystals.

To see more mesmerising ice, watch water freezing into snowflake crystals in slow motion