The Secret World of Frost

Photographs by Mark Hopkins, Lincoln, MA

When New England’s night-time winter temperatures dip below a frigid 10 degrees, wonderful worlds sometimes emerge from nowhere to make fleeting appearances on window-panes. The lower the mercury plummets, the wilder and more magical their geographies become.

The photographs in this series were taken during severe cold spells over two winters in an upstairs bedroom of a Massachusetts home. Most of them were shot shortly after dawn, before the warming sun dissolved the delicate details into droplets of dew. The bright light appearing in some is the awakening sun peeking through distant trees.