Take superb shots of leaves in ice

To get the textured ice effect in the photo above, we placed the leaf and a little water in a plastic container and left it just long enough to freeze partially, but not to freeze solid. Sandpaper was used to flatten out a few random sections, to make it look more natural. The set-up was placed in front of a window for the backlit effect.

Go abstract

Striking winter macros play on the contrast of texture and colours, which is why ice is such a godsend.

Pick strongly coloured leaves (multicoloured are usually the most interesting) that will stand out against the cold hues of the frozen ice. Unless your frame is mostly coloured leaves and very little ice, be sure to dial in around a stop (1 EV) of extra exposure, so that the ice is bright and white, not dark and muddy. Take your frames of the frozen leaf in its entirety, then get in really close and go for intricate abstract macro shots with impact. You'll get something much more original this way.

If you're blessed with icy conditions, you'll have the luxury of shooting a range of different frozen textures as they occur naturally. If not, manufacturing them is fairly easy. If you've frozen your leaves solid, try adding texture with sandpaper, or, if you want a really clear look, pour cold water on the ice to get rid of any crystals.

You can also try stamping on or hitting the ice to create different textures. Depending on the amount of ice you're working with it can be a good idea to keep the ice in the container, as it can easily snap when removed.

Brighten up the whites of your ice by tweaking the levels...

As it's so bright, ice is really brilliant at fooling your camera's light meter into underexposing.

You may well find, even though you've compensated, that your whites aren't as white as you'd have liked. Luckily, you can get adjust them to a gleaming level in the digital darkroom.

It only takes a few seconds, using Levels in Photoshop. Here's how to do it: open Levels then drag the highlights slider towards the centre to increase contrast and boost highlights. If you hold down the [Alt] key you'll be able to see the pixels that are clipped.

The pixels you should be clipping are just the specular highlights (these contain no pixel data and are the brightest, shiniest parts of the image). Avoid clipping large patches and don't go overboard – aim to recreate a very light, faint pattern of the ice when you hold down the [Alt] key.

All images by Rachael D'Cruze