I was a child the first time I walked into a glacial cave, but that is a faded memory from the distant past. Even some of my earliest memories of photographing these strange landscapes are now over twenty years old. The first cave I really got to know melted away completely prior to 2009. These photos help recall it to my mind.

Early in my experience with photography, it was popular to refer to almost anything as an "abstract" photograph, but that term never set quite right with me. I prefer to call photos that obscure the basic outline of a subject in favor of line, color, or texture a "study" or "portrait". The image below reveals patterns in ice texture I had never seen photographed prior to its creation. To be honest, I still can't recall seeing someone else's record of the phenomenon.

Photographing subglacial caves adds another layer of indulgence to the experience of being inside them. While human visual perception is often overwhelmed by the blue light, the camera helps to clarify that there is significant variation and nuance to the light that is highly dependent on the depths and qualities of ice through which it has traveled.

On Earth, beauty is temporary, and this cavern opening up over lake water marked the beginning of the end of this magical place. The edge of the glacier is now hundreds of meters away from the stream seen in these photographs.