Remnants of Winter; Harbingers of Spring 7
April 4, 2018
Ice had formed on the surface of a pond. A polarizing filter was on the camera lens. The download of photographs was more surprising than usual. I wasn’t thinking of interference colors when I took these photographs, but that’s what was going on. The explanation in the link above is a bit thick, but if you’re keen to know more, there’s more information here and here. (Longtime followers of this blog know that the colors of Leptothrix discophora films—which I photograph ad nauseam—are due to the interference phenomenon and may not be surprised that I raise the topic again.) OK, but here’s a new puzzle for me: Why is the ice forming in shards? Does ice always form that way? Mysteries, mysteries.
Romancing Reality 
Looks like the ice formed, broke and mostly melted, and then reformed, incorporating the “old” ice into the “new” ice.
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April 4, 2018 at 11:01 AM
Thanks for your theory, Tamara. In an e-mail, another person wrote that it might have to do with “conditions like, stillness, presence of an initial ‘seed’, the temperature at initial formation. He also called this ice “crystallized water.”
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April 4, 2018 at 12:37 PM
The second photo is a marvelously subtle abstract of nature at work. Beautiful!
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April 4, 2018 at 11:34 AM
Thank you, Patricia. Without the polarized filter on the lens, you don’t see anything like this.
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April 4, 2018 at 12:39 PM
More than a little thick for my brain! Birefringent? Seriously? 😉 But I appreciate your writing about this phenomenon and posting links. When you took the picture and looked through the viewfinder, or at the screen, did you see some of that rainbow coloring, or none until you downloaded? Polarizing filters can do strange things! The photos are great, very interesting. The fault line predilections of ice are another subject….
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April 6, 2018 at 3:59 PM
Yeah, “birefringent” wasn’t all I didn’t get, but you never know who reads your blogs. I can’t remember if I saw rainbow coloring on the second photo either when I chimped or when I looked through the viewfinder. You’d think I’d remember that. Glad you like the photos. They’re more documentary than artistic, but sometimes I just have to do that.
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April 6, 2018 at 4:20 PM