I'm about to photograph a lump of ice in the shape of, and around the size of a tennis ball. Clearly I shall have to work out focussing issues, lighting and metering ahead of time as I won't have a lot of time before it melts.

Has anyone any experience shooting ice on this close-up level? Any clues for getting the best image? It may be that it ends up being a B&W image - and I'm thinking a black background would be good.

I had a quick practice with an ice block, but it looked pretty ordinary .... so perhaps there's something special required?