Pictures of the Day: Boston and Elsewhere

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Photos from Boston, Bahrain, Syria and North Korea.

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Pictures of the Day: Boston and Elsewhere

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Photos from Boston, Bahrain, Syria and North Korea.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.

Pictures of the Day: Boston and Elsewhere

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Photos from Boston, Bahrain, Syria and North Korea.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.

Frozen in Place and Time

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Spring arrived last week in New York, bringing warm days and a bumper crop of daffodils to grassy patches all around the city. In Los Angeles, the weather was â€" predictably â€" pleasant.

But elsewhere in America, it was still snowing. By Thursday, a spring storm had swept eastward, carrying wind, snow and freezing temperatures across the Rockies and the Great Plains, to Jenn Ackerman’s adopted home, Minnesota.

“Winter was something that I was quite scared of, moving to Minnesota,” said Ms. Ackerman, a native of Virginia. “But I’d heard that if you want to love Minnesota, you have to accept winter. So I thought, ‘O.K., I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to do this.’ ”

For Ms. Ackerman, accepting winter meant photographing it. Over the past three years, she has crisscrossed the state, defying the cold and the snow to take portraits of people and places for a project she calls “Frozen.”

Growing up in Virginia Beach, where average temperatures stay well above freezing, Ms. Ackerman was accustomed to mild winters. Snowfall in the South consisted mostly of flurries, and the occasional snowman she built as a child melted quickly.

Jenn Ackerman Mille Lacs Lake, Minn.

In 2009, she married a man from Minnesota. At first, Ms. Ackerman was unequivocal in her feelings about his home state. “ ‘Look, I’m a coast girl,’ ” she recalled telling her husband, Tim Gruber. “ ‘I’m going to live on the East or West Coast.’ ”

Then they moved to Minneapolis.

Shortly after their arrival, Mr. Gruber gave Ms. Ackerman a large-format camera for her 30th birthday. With the hulking camera in tow, she began driving out from the Twin Cities, venturing farther and farther afield to take pictures of people in the snow.

“I would just go out to these places that were isolated and find other people that were kind of like me,” Ms. Ackerman said. “Exploring and enjoying winter.”

Often, she wound up in the middle of an ice-covered lake, miles from any shoreline. Sometimes she was by herself, maneuvering between snowdrifts in her Chevrolet Impala to reach a lonely icehouse. Other times, she was surrounded by communities of ice fishermen boring holes in the thick, frozen crust and pulling spotted fish from the depths below.

Mille Lacs Lake, one of Ms. Ackerman’s favorite spots, stretches nearly 18 miles wide and 20 miles long and is the state’s second-largest inland lake. “It’s like a frozen ocean,” she said. “You look around and there is no sign of shore. You really have to trust whatever is underneath you. I was unsettled when I first went out on the ice. I wasn’t used to doing it.”

Tim Gruber Jenn Ackerman with her 4-by-5 in Grand Marais, Minn.

Over time, she grew accustomed to the cold and the creaking ice. She acquired all the requisite winter gear â€" boots, a parka, snow pants, heavy-duty mittens â€" and kept a steady supply of hand warmers ready to thaw her fingers when they became numb.

During her first winter, Ms. Ackerman said, the wind chill plummeted to minus-40 degrees and tears obscured her vision while she worked. At times it felt like self-torture. Still, she relished the experience â€" the quiet, the isolation, the solitude â€" and discovered that her new camera was the perfect tool to capture what she was feeling.

“The 4-by-5 allowed me to stare,” said Ms. Ackerman, who hauled her camera gear behind her on a plastic sled. “The whole process is a silent one anyway. You can’t really communicate with the people you’re photographing because you’re behind a big camera, covered with a drape.”

The slow, deliberate way of shooting was new for Ms. Ackerman, whose previous work, including a project documenting mentally ill prison inmates, is full of force and vitality. Conversely, the portraits in “Frozen” â€" of two children in ski masks (Slide 7), a racecar driver (Slide 15), a woman holding the fish she had caught (Slide 9) â€" are still, almost statuesque.

“Most of the time in winter you’re running from your car to the store,” Ms. Ackerman said. “You don’t stand in the middle of winter. You do that in summer. You stand and look at the sun, and that’s acceptable. There was a connection that I was able to make with people that were willing to do that.”

Among the things that Ms. Ackerman likes most about winter is the way that ice and snow can reorganize a familiar landscape. In summer, Minnesota’s lakes are a hive of activity, she said, crowded with anglers, boaters and swimmers. Six months later, they become vast sweeps of forsaken territory.

As winter reshapes the land, so too can it alter its inhabitants. After three years in Minnesota, Ms. Ackerman has a more positive outlook.

“I look forward to a rebirth,” she said of spring. “When the landscape changes, you’re transformed as well. You’re excited about the next season, and the new year.”

Jenn Ackerman “Parking Lot,” Angle Inlet, Minn.

Follow @jennackerman and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.

Frozen in Place and Time

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Spring arrived last week in New York, bringing warm days and a bumper crop of daffodils to grassy patches all around the city. In Los Angeles, the weather was â€" predictably â€" pleasant.

But elsewhere in America, it was still snowing. By Thursday, a spring storm had swept eastward, carrying wind, snow and freezing temperatures across the Rockies and the Great Plains, to Jenn Ackerman’s adopted home, Minnesota.

“Winter was something that I was quite scared of, moving to Minnesota,” said Ms. Ackerman, a native of Virginia. “But I’d heard that if you want to love Minnesota, you have to accept winter. So I thought, ‘O.K., I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to do this.’ ”

For Ms. Ackerman, accepting winter meant photographing it. Over the past three years, she has crisscrossed the state, defying the cold and the snow to take portraits of people and places for a project she calls “Frozen.”

Growing up in Virginia Beach, where average temperatures stay well above freezing, Ms. Ackerman was accustomed to mild winters. Snowfall in the South consisted mostly of flurries, and the occasional snowman she built as a child melted quickly.

Jenn Ackerman Mille Lacs Lake, Minn.

In 2009, she married a man from Minnesota. At first, Ms. Ackerman was unequivocal in her feelings about his home state. “ ‘Look, I’m a coast girl,’ ” she recalled telling her husband, Tim Gruber. “ ‘I’m going to live on the East or West Coast.’ ”

Then they moved to Minneapolis.

Shortly after their arrival, Mr. Gruber gave Ms. Ackerman a large-format camera for her 30th birthday. With the hulking camera in tow, she began driving out from the Twin Cities, venturing farther and farther afield to take pictures of people in the snow.

“I would just go out to these places that were isolated and find other people that were kind of like me,” Ms. Ackerman said. “Exploring and enjoying winter.”

Often, she wound up in the middle of an ice-covered lake, miles from any shoreline. Sometimes she was by herself, maneuvering between snowdrifts in her Chevrolet Impala to reach a lonely icehouse. Other times, she was surrounded by communities of ice fishermen boring holes in the thick, frozen crust and pulling spotted fish from the depths below.

Mille Lacs Lake, one of Ms. Ackerman’s favorite spots, stretches nearly 18 miles wide and 20 miles long and is the state’s second-largest inland lake. “It’s like a frozen ocean,” she said. “You look around and there is no sign of shore. You really have to trust whatever is underneath you. I was unsettled when I first went out on the ice. I wasn’t used to doing it.”

Tim Gruber Jenn Ackerman with her 4-by-5 in Grand Marais, Minn.

Over time, she grew accustomed to the cold and the creaking ice. She acquired all the requisite winter gear â€" boots, a parka, snow pants, heavy-duty mittens â€" and kept a steady supply of hand warmers ready to thaw her fingers when they became numb.

During her first winter, Ms. Ackerman said, the wind chill plummeted to minus-40 degrees and tears obscured her vision while she worked. At times it felt like self-torture. Still, she relished the experience â€" the quiet, the isolation, the solitude â€" and discovered that her new camera was the perfect tool to capture what she was feeling.

“The 4-by-5 allowed me to stare,” said Ms. Ackerman, who hauled her camera gear behind her on a plastic sled. “The whole process is a silent one anyway. You can’t really communicate with the people you’re photographing because you’re behind a big camera, covered with a drape.”

The slow, deliberate way of shooting was new for Ms. Ackerman, whose previous work, including a project documenting mentally ill prison inmates, is full of force and vitality. Conversely, the portraits in “Frozen” â€" of two children in ski masks (Slide 7), a racecar driver (Slide 15), a woman holding the fish she had caught (Slide 9) â€" are still, almost statuesque.

“Most of the time in winter you’re running from your car to the store,” Ms. Ackerman said. “You don’t stand in the middle of winter. You do that in summer. You stand and look at the sun, and that’s acceptable. There was a connection that I was able to make with people that were willing to do that.”

Among the things that Ms. Ackerman likes most about winter is the way that ice and snow can reorganize a familiar landscape. In summer, Minnesota’s lakes are a hive of activity, she said, crowded with anglers, boaters and swimmers. Six months later, they become vast sweeps of forsaken territory.

As winter reshapes the land, so too can it alter its inhabitants. After three years in Minnesota, Ms. Ackerman has a more positive outlook.

“I look forward to a rebirth,” she said of spring. “When the landscape changes, you’re transformed as well. You’re excited about the next season, and the new year.”

Jenn Ackerman “Parking Lot,” Angle Inlet, Minn.

Follow @jennackerman and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.

Frozen in Place and Time

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Spring arrived last week in New York, bringing warm days and a bumper crop of daffodils to grassy patches all around the city. In Los Angeles, the weather was â€" predictably â€" pleasant.

But elsewhere in America, it was still snowing. By Thursday, a spring storm had swept eastward, carrying wind, snow and freezing temperatures across the Rockies and the Great Plains, to Jenn Ackerman’s adopted home, Minnesota.

“Winter was something that I was quite scared of, moving to Minnesota,” said Ms. Ackerman, a native of Virginia. “But I’d heard that if you want to love Minnesota, you have to accept winter. So I thought, ‘O.K., I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to do this.’ ”

For Ms. Ackerman, accepting winter meant photographing it. Over the past three years, she has crisscrossed the state, defying the cold and the snow to take portraits of people and places for a project she calls “Frozen.”

Growing up in Virginia Beach, where average temperatures stay well above freezing, Ms. Ackerman was accustomed to mild winters. Snowfall in the South consisted mostly of flurries, and the occasional snowman she built as a child melted quickly.

Jenn Ackerman Mille Lacs Lake, Minn.

In 2009, she married a man from Minnesota. At first, Ms. Ackerman was unequivocal in her feelings about his home state. “ ‘Look, I’m a coast girl,’ ” she recalled telling her husband, Tim Gruber. “ ‘I’m going to live on the East or West Coast.’ ”

Then they moved to Minneapolis.

Shortly after their arrival, Mr. Gruber gave Ms. Ackerman a large-format camera for her 30th birthday. With the hulking camera in tow, she began driving out from the Twin Cities, venturing farther and farther afield to take pictures of people in the snow.

“I would just go out to these places that were isolated and find other people that were kind of like me,” Ms. Ackerman said. “Exploring and enjoying winter.”

Often, she wound up in the middle of an ice-covered lake, miles from any shoreline. Sometimes she was by herself, maneuvering between snowdrifts in her Chevrolet Impala to reach a lonely icehouse. Other times, she was surrounded by communities of ice fishermen boring holes in the thick, frozen crust and pulling spotted fish from the depths below.

Mille Lacs Lake, one of Ms. Ackerman’s favorite spots, stretches nearly 18 miles wide and 20 miles long and is the state’s second-largest inland lake. “It’s like a frozen ocean,” she said. “You look around and there is no sign of shore. You really have to trust whatever is underneath you. I was unsettled when I first went out on the ice. I wasn’t used to doing it.”

Tim Gruber Jenn Ackerman with her 4-by-5 in Grand Marais, Minn.

Over time, she grew accustomed to the cold and the creaking ice. She acquired all the requisite winter gear â€" boots, a parka, snow pants, heavy-duty mittens â€" and kept a steady supply of hand warmers ready to thaw her fingers when they became numb.

During her first winter, Ms. Ackerman said, the wind chill plummeted to minus-40 degrees and tears obscured her vision while she worked. At times it felt like self-torture. Still, she relished the experience â€" the quiet, the isolation, the solitude â€" and discovered that her new camera was the perfect tool to capture what she was feeling.

“The 4-by-5 allowed me to stare,” said Ms. Ackerman, who hauled her camera gear behind her on a plastic sled. “The whole process is a silent one anyway. You can’t really communicate with the people you’re photographing because you’re behind a big camera, covered with a drape.”

The slow, deliberate way of shooting was new for Ms. Ackerman, whose previous work, including a project documenting mentally ill prison inmates, is full of force and vitality. Conversely, the portraits in “Frozen” â€" of two children in ski masks (Slide 7), a racecar driver (Slide 15), a woman holding the fish she had caught (Slide 9) â€" are still, almost statuesque.

“Most of the time in winter you’re running from your car to the store,” Ms. Ackerman said. “You don’t stand in the middle of winter. You do that in summer. You stand and look at the sun, and that’s acceptable. There was a connection that I was able to make with people that were willing to do that.”

Among the things that Ms. Ackerman likes most about winter is the way that ice and snow can reorganize a familiar landscape. In summer, Minnesota’s lakes are a hive of activity, she said, crowded with anglers, boaters and swimmers. Six months later, they become vast sweeps of forsaken territory.

As winter reshapes the land, so too can it alter its inhabitants. After three years in Minnesota, Ms. Ackerman has a more positive outlook.

“I look forward to a rebirth,” she said of spring. “When the landscape changes, you’re transformed as well. You’re excited about the next season, and the new year.”

Jenn Ackerman “Parking Lot,” Angle Inlet, Minn.

Follow @jennackerman and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.

Frozen in Place and Time

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Spring arrived last week in New York, bringing warm days and a bumper crop of daffodils to grassy patches all around the city. In Los Angeles, the weather was â€" predictably â€" pleasant.

But elsewhere in America, it was still snowing. By Thursday, a spring storm had swept eastward, carrying wind, snow and freezing temperatures across the Rockies and the Great Plains, to Jenn Ackerman’s adopted home, Minnesota.

“Winter was something that I was quite scared of, moving to Minnesota,” said Ms. Ackerman, a native of Virginia. “But I’d heard that if you want to love Minnesota, you have to accept winter. So I thought, ‘O.K., I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to do this.’ ”

For Ms. Ackerman, accepting winter meant photographing it. Over the past three years, she has crisscrossed the state, defying the cold and the snow to take portraits of people and places for a project she calls “Frozen.”

Growing up in Virginia Beach, where average temperatures stay well above freezing, Ms. Ackerman was accustomed to mild winters. Snowfall in the South consisted mostly of flurries, and the occasional snowman she built as a child melted quickly.

Jenn Ackerman Mille Lacs Lake, Minn.

In 2009, she married a man from Minnesota. At first, Ms. Ackerman was unequivocal in her feelings about his home state. “ ‘Look, I’m a coast girl,’ ” she recalled telling her husband, Tim Gruber. “ ‘I’m going to live on the East or West Coast.’ ”

Then they moved to Minneapolis.

Shortly after their arrival, Mr. Gruber gave Ms. Ackerman a large-format camera for her 30th birthday. With the hulking camera in tow, she began driving out from the Twin Cities, venturing farther and farther afield to take pictures of people in the snow.

“I would just go out to these places that were isolated and find other people that were kind of like me,” Ms. Ackerman said. “Exploring and enjoying winter.”

Often, she wound up in the middle of an ice-covered lake, miles from any shoreline. Sometimes she was by herself, maneuvering between snowdrifts in her Chevrolet Impala to reach a lonely icehouse. Other times, she was surrounded by communities of ice fishermen boring holes in the thick, frozen crust and pulling spotted fish from the depths below.

Mille Lacs Lake, one of Ms. Ackerman’s favorite spots, stretches nearly 18 miles wide and 20 miles long and is the state’s second-largest inland lake. “It’s like a frozen ocean,” she said. “You look around and there is no sign of shore. You really have to trust whatever is underneath you. I was unsettled when I first went out on the ice. I wasn’t used to doing it.”

Tim Gruber Jenn Ackerman with her 4-by-5 in Grand Marais, Minn.

Over time, she grew accustomed to the cold and the creaking ice. She acquired all the requisite winter gear â€" boots, a parka, snow pants, heavy-duty mittens â€" and kept a steady supply of hand warmers ready to thaw her fingers when they became numb.

During her first winter, Ms. Ackerman said, the wind chill plummeted to minus-40 degrees and tears obscured her vision while she worked. At times it felt like self-torture. Still, she relished the experience â€" the quiet, the isolation, the solitude â€" and discovered that her new camera was the perfect tool to capture what she was feeling.

“The 4-by-5 allowed me to stare,” said Ms. Ackerman, who hauled her camera gear behind her on a plastic sled. “The whole process is a silent one anyway. You can’t really communicate with the people you’re photographing because you’re behind a big camera, covered with a drape.”

The slow, deliberate way of shooting was new for Ms. Ackerman, whose previous work, including a project documenting mentally ill prison inmates, is full of force and vitality. Conversely, the portraits in “Frozen” â€" of two children in ski masks (Slide 7), a racecar driver (Slide 15), a woman holding the fish she had caught (Slide 9) â€" are still, almost statuesque.

“Most of the time in winter you’re running from your car to the store,” Ms. Ackerman said. “You don’t stand in the middle of winter. You do that in summer. You stand and look at the sun, and that’s acceptable. There was a connection that I was able to make with people that were willing to do that.”

Among the things that Ms. Ackerman likes most about winter is the way that ice and snow can reorganize a familiar landscape. In summer, Minnesota’s lakes are a hive of activity, she said, crowded with anglers, boaters and swimmers. Six months later, they become vast sweeps of forsaken territory.

As winter reshapes the land, so too can it alter its inhabitants. After three years in Minnesota, Ms. Ackerman has a more positive outlook.

“I look forward to a rebirth,” she said of spring. “When the landscape changes, you’re transformed as well. You’re excited about the next season, and the new year.”

Jenn Ackerman “Parking Lot,” Angle Inlet, Minn.

Follow @jennackerman and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.

Pictures of the Day: Pakistan and Elsewhere

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.

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Photos from Pakistan, Egypt, Syria and France.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.