Dents, creases and folds in the water

A lot of photographs of moving water use a long exposure to bring out the silky smoothness of the flow.  Here for instance, the exposure was .6 sec.  That’s pretty long for a normal exposure.


This one was even longer at 1.6 sec.


We’re used to seeing nice smooth flow.  That is a trick of the camera and also of  our brains.  We interpret the scene as smoothly flowing.   Photographing water up close and at more normal photographic exposures shows something quite different:


Dimples.  This is a function of surface tension.  Once again, enter a different world than the one we think we inhabit.


Most of these pictures were shot at 1/100 sec. or faster and a  different picture emerges.


That looks like a hole in the water.


Would you expect to see something like that?  I wouldn’t have.


Surface tension.


When I see this, I wonder what else we are missing.  It’s all right there in front of us.  All we need to do is look with a camera.  And wonder.

3 thoughts on “Dents, creases and folds in the water

  1. While wondering thru your sensuous and artistic images of light, form, lines, textures, and movement that continuously change….I thought I would look for a poem to match what you have captured…. this poem seems to have a lot of depth as do your photos… just beautiful

    “There is a point where in the mystery of
    existence contradictions meet;
    where movement is not all movement
    and stillness is not all stillness;
    where the idea and the form,
    the within and the without, are united;
    where infinite becomes finite,
    yet not losing its infinity.

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