A flower is seen frozen in water as a part of the photographer's 'Frozen Flowers' photo series. (Mo Devlin)

Photographer Mo Devlin puts a new spin on macro flower photography by shooting close-ups of flowers encased in ice – an experiment that turned into a beautiful photo series.

“My original plan with ice was to photograph an old Seiko watch and call it ‘freezing time,’” Devlin explained to weather.com. “At the same time I also took the opportunity to freeze a long stem rose in my wife’s favorite flower vase.”

He quickly realized that was a bad idea. “That’s when I got my first science lesson on freezing stuff. Ice expands as it freezes. I cracked the vase, but I ended up with a nice frozen flower.”

He took pictures of the frozen flower and he liked the photos so much he decided to scrap the watch idea and move forward with flowers.

“As time went on I practiced freezing flowers in different containers, different sizes and shapes. Each one gave me something a little different,” said Devlin.

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But, there was one thing that was the same – the trails of air bubbles inside the ice cube. After some research Devlin discovered why they were being created.

“Water as it cools becomes more dense up to about 39 degrees. At that point the water is actually denser than the ice it will later form. As the water ‘contracts’ it slowly squeezes the air bubbles out of the organic material. As it continues to freeze, the ice slowly expands, stretching the ice bubbles into the beautiful trailers that give the photo texture,” said Devlin.

According to Devlin, his greatest challenge in photographing the frozen flowers was the water.

“Tap water, when frozen, will show impurities in the form of cloudy white [ice],” he explained.

He eventually settled on using water that has been purified through a reverse osmosis filtration system, but for some flowers the pure water wasn’t enough.

“Sometimes the impurities in the bloom cause a problem. For example, a daisy will freeze clean, but a poinsettia will almost always freeze with a lot of cloudy ice. This is due to the creamy sap in the plant, which is squeezed into the medium as it freezes.”

Devlin freezes the flowers in a container and uses rubber bands and a skewer stick to hold the flower at the “best angle” in the container. The whole process takes place in his kitchen sink.

To see more of Devlin’s work visit his website or Facebook page.