Thursday, July 15, 2010

Surface tension

During a lovely visit recently by Jeannine's niece Rachel, we drove to a local lake to go swimming on a very hot day. For some reason we were unable to puzzle out, we were the only people at the beach. The water was perfect, and the sky blue with scattered clouds. On one side of the roped-off swimming area was a more weedy spot, a great breeding area for frogs. And there were lots of them. Here's one fine fellow (or gal... I don't know, really) who sat for several minutes while I sneaked up very close to snap his picture.



Jeannine mentioned that she liked the yellow lily pad flowers spotted among the water plants, so I resolved to take a shot of one of them. Just as I did...



... some kind of bug crawled out of it.

But of most interest to me in this photo is what I saw only after I got home and opened it on my computer. I was amazed at the way the edges of the lily pads interacted with the surface of the water, creating ripples almost half an inch wide around their edges, due to the surface tension. I don't think I'd ever noticed this before. -- PL

4 comments:

mikeandraph87 said...

Its invasion of the Punk Frogs as Genghis returs for another visit!...sorry,but I love tohse guys. One of my two fave non-Mirage Studios cahracters! :)

I confess I have a phobia of what might be in lakes and rivers and pefer only to swiming pools.
Enjoy the summer!

David McBride said...

That is very cool it reminds me of the plastic wrap effect in photoshop. Cool frog picture Iove a great nature picture they are very inspiring.

Tyr Germanic said...

mikeandraph said:
"Its invasion of the Punk Frogs as Genghis returs for another visit!..."
psssh.everybody knows its all about Rasputin the mad frog.

He has mad in his name.Thats awesome.like mad max or mad stephen..(not a coincidence theyre both from mel gibson movies.)

nice scenery shots,pl. The dampness of the green colors stand out very well.

From Mary's Pen said...

Oh dear... LOL And I thought I was the only one thinking of the frogs when I saw that picture... I do love the '80's cartoon, as cheesy and silly as it often was.

That aside... Hmm It does seem odd on a hot day that you'd be the only ones at the beach. I wonder what everyone else knows that you didn't?

I love the shot of the lily pads... Ha looks like you have an attention-hogging bug on your hands. He was just posing for the camera.

Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary