Dreaming of creating weird lenses is my thing, sometimes i dream too much and it gets crazy.
after i made some researches online, i discovered that no one ever made a working ice lens.
How can i make something that would work if no one else ever made it work before me.
I made a lot of prototypes, worked on this project for 6 months to get the right shape, the right focus distance and get the right tools before i leave for Iceland.
Iceland glaciers takes 10 000 years to purify the particles inside the ice, and i want to use this amazing power to create a clear lens.
After 2 weeks around Iceland ,we arrived on the famous Diamond beach where big and small icebergs are stuck on the black beach.
All i had to do was to find a nice small piece of clear ice and shape it with a japanese ice ball maker.
but … what i didn’t plan was time it took to melt the ice in a cold environment.
At home the room temperature was around 20°C so melting ice took 5 min top … but in a polar environment it took 45 min…
So we had to stay 5 hours on the beach to make just one working lens ( the 4 previous attempt broke in the mold, resulting in a lot of stress and frustration )
Finally the last lens worked, and i was amazed by the images i saw on my screen, of course they are not sharp or clean like a modern lens, but they are amazing when you know it’s just a piece of ice that focused light.
