Winter Magic: Ice & Snow Carving

"QUANTUM SHOT" #359
link

The beauty of these sculptures will melt your heart;
the sculptures themselves will melt soon after

Ice and Snow Sculpture competitions are becoming quite popular, with the most famous being held in Harbin, China. It attracts teams of carvers from all over the world, displaying considerable skill with dozens of unique entries - full of magical play of reflections, lights and winter charms.

Fairy tale carriages prove to be very popular with ice sculptors:

(images credit: Eisbeertje / Irene)

Lake Placid, NY Ice Festival:

(original unknown)

Chinese Ice Art exhibition: "Magic Ice 2005" at Madurodam: sculpted gallery with the Chinese lanterns (and a crocodile inside) -

(images credit: Eisbeertje)

"Old Man and Dragon", "Dancers", "Pianist" - all marvelously creative pieces:

(images credit: vitafluida)

"Frozen Butterflies" -

(image credit: Traveller35)

Harbin Ice & Light Show

Harbin, China, ice sculpture competition features some delicate and beautiful entries, like these ones:

(images credit: R. Todd King)

See more of the Harbin Ice Lantern party, 2007 - here

I think some of the structures look a bit too gaudy, draped in multicolored light; the transparent and enchantingly clear character of ice is often lost, and the wild color scheme seems a bit too random. But the structures light up the night with millions of lights, which definitely adds to the cheer of frolicking crowds.

Sparkling Pagoda:

Inside one of the ice buildings: Ice Room:

(images credit: Traveller35)

At the latest show you could even climb around the huge replica of Soviet Kremlin-like towers:

(image credit: Emma)

The other world-famous competition is in Alberta, Canada - Banff & Lake Louise Ice Magic:

(image credit: Mike Holroyde)

(image credit: Mike Roest)

"Cool Jazz" -

(image credit: Greg Adams)

Snow is almost as enchanting

Snow sculptures are harder to make, as they do not hold their shape as well as ice. However, many skillful entries at Harbin's festival showed an advanced technique of hollowing out parts of the shape, to create sophisticated compositions - like these:

Harbin Snow Sculpture Art Fair, taken from a period 2003-2007
(see more snow sculptures here)