Water H20
The very substance of life, the universal solvent of chemical reactions & possibly the most important substance in the Universe. It's who we are and without it, there is no life, not as we know it anyway. Just desert. Water is collected and stored in plants and animals allowing complex chemical reactions to occur.
"Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing, that makes it water and nobody knows what it is." D H Lawrence
Molecules
Water is often visualised as a bent, v-shaped molecule. Two hydrogen atoms holding hands with an oxygen atom in the middle. When many of these molecules come together as in a raindrop, the hydrogen bonds slip in an eternal dance with each other around the heavier oxygen atom making water so very slippery and wet.
Building Blocks
After oxygen (which water is partly made up of) & which we need to metabolise energy, (we get from sunlight via plants & or animals), we need water to facilitate the many complex chemical reactions our lives depend on. So we have to be thankful to generations of stars for making up the unlimited gallons of oxygen and hydrogen in their very hearts, to be released into the cosmos when they died, billions of years ago, so we could live and know that fact. (that's the meaning of life, right there in a glass of water).
The heart of Stars
Incredible to think that our very being was cooked at unimaginable temperatures in the void of deep space and can be as refreshing as that very still, (philosophically important & cool), glass of iced water on a summers day, or as comforting as that hot bath after a cold trek in snow, in the middle of winter where freezing fog has got right into your bones, which are slightly less water than the rest of us is. No wonder we like tea and coffee so much. We are basically not much more than tea with sugar and milk (bones) ourselves. (fat protein sugar water = human)
Rainbows
Water's way of showing us the true glory of light in all it's (visible) colours. All energy is just a frequency of light.. microwaves, gamma rays, radio waves. We just can't see them. Everything that isn't light that's powered by it is just water with a bit of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, with a very delicate sprinkling of metal. Simple
Solid - Liquid - Gas
Water plays an important part in my work. It's so very versatile and creates beauty wherever it travels, always with the path of least resistance until it settles, waiting for the sun to return it to the sky in an eternal dance of evaporation and condensation. The following collection brings together water in all of it's glorious forms, from droplets to ice crystals, steam and the glassy stillness of a perfect reflection. Water bounces light in a way that almost nothing else does and for that reason I dedicate this post to the rain.
- Moss Flowers Condense Raindrops (can you see the house?)
- Waves break the shores of the Red Sea in Egypt
- A well camouflaged marine creature in a rather untidy rock pool. Conwy, North Wales
- Raindrops forming concentric circles in water, the ripple; a perfect metaphor for the repercussions of our actions.
- An entire ecosystem; a world in a jar cultured for viewing with the microscope
- Miniature ice crystals form morning frost along the top of the wall. The white dusting revealed in close up
- A rare double rainbow, water's incredible refractive properties in vapour form showing us the almost miraculous colours of sunlight in all it's seemingly impossibly true and pure colours
- Fallen leaves float just underneath the surface along the lakes edge in Sefton Park, Liverpool like pre-raphaelite figures
- The drinking fountain at the junction of the path in London Fields caught mid flow like a glassy lava
- Afternoon dewdrops condense forming perfect spherical droplets at the junctions of crossed silk threads in a spiders web
- A downy feather falls into water with leaves but has not quite broken the miniscus (surface tension) yet
- At Diagonal in Barcelona a flash shower provides one more city to add to my reflections series
- The last dewdrop of the morning clings to a blade of glass like a world of it's own before sunlight evaporates it back up into the atmosphere where it will condense yet again somewhere else bringing life with it wherever it is trapped
Water is one truly magic potion @outerground – it gives life!
Thanks @lighteye. Indeed Water is the original magic potion & cure all tonic ;) and we just take it for granted when so many people don't have access to a clean & healthy supply
Wow great work. I'm just starting out in photography, Looks like I've got some more to learn haha. Followed
Thanks for your comment @muchaloo, Just keep taking pictures of things which you enjoy, question yourself often and the results will inevitably follow ! I'm going to follow you now, so if you post some good photography I'll upvote it when & where I can ;)
You did a great essay in glory of water of life, @outerground and your photos are beautiful illustration. Upvoted, resteemed & DPS.
Thanks @photo-trail. I've been a bit exhausted lately and haven't had time to post so much but I have got some interesting new work ! An update to The Artist's Garden will be coming later this week and some other outdoor.
Great...upvoted
Thanks diego ! appreciated :)
These are excellent photos. How were they shot?
thanks @kabbam they're all different really. I think the key is wanting to capture something that's quite everyday but we also take for granted. My Dad always says that (if you look at something long enough) almost anything becomes interesting. He's an artist so spends a lot of time looking and I always remember that when I'm looking at things. Water has so much to offer the camera
I can relate to that idea so well... and it might be off-topic but I get teased a bit for watching the same movies over and over again. I think it's the same principle! Staring at something for long enough (or in this case watching it enough times) draws out the little secrets and subtleties that are seldom noticed.
yes, watching the same film over and over can be like analysing a dream. you will find (or perhaps begin to formulate your own interpretation) of various aspects of subplot ! which may or may not have been intentional. There are certain films I can watch again and again.. some are like old friends.. others are like long forgotten lovers ;)
Great essay on the most important thing we have, and maybe the least appreciated and abused. Ok, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but still, so very important. Love the idea we are little more than tea with the added accoutremon'. Also great images to go along, that fountain is classic. Have a nice night.
thanks @ddschteinn I'm pleased you like it. It probably is the most important thing we have ! The fountain was a really lucky shape.. just right and I wasn't sure how fast I'd need to go to catch it but I think about 1/1200th
That was a nice capture. And oh, the joys of digital. Take a bunch, look, then take more. But what do we do with 173 pictures of the same thing? Oh, I don't know..."Get another hard-drive".
or some cloud space on siacoin network much cheaper and safer ! (I think) or at least another hard drive ! the trick with digital is to go through every FOLDER when captured and delete what you don't need.. although that's easier said than done.. I think I have easily over 100,000 photographs across a few terrabytes of drive space.. backed up hopefully !!
I don't have that many, but quite a few, as well as writings. On several hard drives, which is good, as one is now inaccessible, I yi yiii... Never used a cloud, but should probably try it. Always wonder how secure it is, but many people use them, so probably OK.
Beautifully done!! We are on the same wavelength on this precious thing we call water.
Upvoted & followed @roused
thanks @roused. I'm pleased my water pics struck a chord you big cup of tea ;) I'm following you back
Extremely well written, I love the comparisons you make and your images are just fantastic!
Great read!
thanks @fractalizer ! water is a favourite subject of mine.. I hope you've seen my fractal post of lightning bolts from the storm we had the other night.. bifurcation is the name of the branch :)
I can't see it mate, what is the title of it?
Wonderful photos! I love water as a theme (check my latest post).
Up and resteemed!
Thanks @kalemandra ! appreciated.. I will go and check it out :)
Water something so crucial well one of the most crucial things for mans existence on earth and sadly hardly noticed, thought about or cared for by so many people
This is such a wonderful posts highlighting it's beauty in so many ways
Resteemed
thanks @tattoodjay water is indeed our most precious resource and we might need to look after it better in the future.. I think we're learning from our horrendous industrial pollution of rivers in the past (And still current in some places) that when you pollute the water source, everything gets poisoned too.. and we waste so much !!
Yes we do some countries are leading the way some have yet to start but I think or maybe hope the change is coming to realize we need to take action now
Follow back and keep vote my post guys @outerground
nice picture