George Barker's winter view of Horseshoe Fall at Niagara, number 810 in his Premium Views series, captures the falls in deep freeze with a photographer's camera and tripod planted in the foreground ice as the self-referential focal point of the composition. Barker operated from 11 Main Street, Niagara Falls, New York, and was the most prolific and celebrated photographer of Niagara Falls in the nineteenth century, producing thousands of stereoviews of the site across multiple seasons and vantage points for the national and international souvenir market.

The foreground is a billowing mass of frozen spray and ice formations built up along the lip of the falls, with Barker's own large-format view camera on a wooden tripod positioned at the center of the image pointing toward the cataract below. The Terrapin Tower, the stone observation tower that stood on the brink of the Horseshoe Fall from 1833 until its demolition in 1873, rises prominently in the background above the frozen rim, cased in ice and surrounded by snow-covered trees along the Canadian shore. The falls themselves are largely obscured by the ice buildup, with only a narrow channel of dark water visible at the center.

The orange mount carries the printed imprint "Premium Views by Geo. Barker, 11 Main St., Niagara Falls, N.Y." running vertically along both side borders. The caption at the lower center reads "810 Horseshoe Fall, Winter."