Patterns on the Surface of the Ice

Ice crystal forms shape the surface of a puddle. Just outside the focal field, sunlight scatters off the facets.

Delicate Snow in the Light of Partly Sunny Day

Snow falls equally on the sturdy and the delicate, on the ground and on the plants, blanketing everything. It reflects and refracts the light and brightens the day.


Stalks that supported flowers through the spring and summer, and into the autumn now display a fragile hat of snow, gently illuminated in the filtered sunshine.


Slowly melting in the warmth of the sun, a little bit of snow still caps these dried flowers.

Remnants of a Colorful Autumn

Amid the snow and ice remain a few splashes of color, holdouts from the autumn that wouldn't let go.


Tiny ice crystals adorn these tiny red leaves, gently illuminated by the rising sun.
No, this picture is not sideways - the plant was leaning.


A pair of yellow leaves battered but still clinging to their mother branch.

White Crystalline Fur

As the temperatures sink into the 20s, snow that had fallen over the previous day serves as a substrate for crystal growth.


Water molecules in the air settle on the exposed ice surfaces, extending the existing crystals into this furry configuration.


Close up, the individual crystals appear as individual towers of ice.

Nature's Wonder

Throughout the natural world, many shapes are found again and again in different contexts. We see circles, ellipses, spirals, waves, lines, polygons, and many other shapes at various levels of complexity.


Here we have what appear to be feathers similar to those found on birds, but in this case, made entirely of ice, formed spontaneously over the top of a wet spot of ground. As the temperature dropped, the water feeding this puddle slowed, lowering its level. Molecule by molecule, water evaporated from the top of the lowered puddle and condensed on the crystals that had already begun to form on the earlier surface of the puddle, arranging themselves in this pattern.

Winter Has Arrived

On a quiet country drive, the wet snow slowly melts away.

No Lifeguard on Duty

Traveling Again

Sitting here in the airport early in the morning as I all too often do, I watch as passengers make their way here and there. It's a typical scene that any traveler will recognize but it seemed somehow visually interesting this morning. I shot this with the camera set at 1600 ISO and added noise beyond that resulting from the high sensitivity setting; then switched to monochrome which seemed appropriate.

Sunrise

When I awoke this morning the ceiling was illuminated in Orange. Looking out the window, this is what I saw.

Spice

Cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, fennel, salt.

Seattle at Night

View of the Seattle Skyline across Elliott Bay from Alki Beach in West Seattle.
This is about a full minute exposure. Streaks in the sky were made by commercial aircraft on approach into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Click the image to enlarge.

Copalis Beach, WA, December 2, 2006 - Razor Clam Dig

Washington's Copalis Beach (Google Maps, MS Live) is inundated by groups of people in search of the prized Pacific Razor Clam.
Click the image to enlarge.



Copalis Beach is extraordinarily flat. As the tide recedes, movements of the clams beneath the sand produce telltale markings on the surface in the form of small concave depressions often surrounded by a raised ring. These range in size from about 1/4 inch up to 2 inches in diameter. Walking slowly along the sand, diggers scan the surface for these signs.



Illuminated by the low-angle sunlight, patterns in the sand carved by the waves and left behind by the tide present interesting photographic subjects.


Once the surface mark of a clam is spotted, a tubular tool is used to extract a core from the beach sand. Pressing this tube into the sand, the air vents out through a hole in the handle. Covering this hole, the tube is then withdrawn with its contents. The clam may or may not come up in the core. It's often necessary to reach into the hole and remove it by hand. This must be done quickly as the clams immediately begin digging deeper when their environment is disturbed. They can move remarkably quickly through the sand. The ambient temperature was in the upper 30s and falling when these pictures were taken.


In the wake of all the clam digging activity, the beach is strewn with collapsing holes, cores, and occasional dead clams and crabs or pieces of them.


The search continues...


As the sun finally sets, seagulls scavenge for the dead bits left behind by the clam diggers.


A nearly full moon gently illuminates the beach enabling the search to continue after sundown.

After the Fall

It's still officially Autumn but already the snow from the first winter storm of the season is melting away. A winged seed pod still hangs from a Japanese Maple tree that only a few weeks ago was in the midst of a spectacular color show.


Trapped beneath the ice crust on a frozen puddle, a fallen maple leaf peers up at the rising sunlight.