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Interestingly I noticed that while I took these photos whether the water sitting in the hose formed a convex (bulging outward) or concave (curving inward) shape determined whether my reflection was inverted or not. You can see I am inverted here where the water was concave.
I had planned on doing Earth, Air, Fire and Water in that order, but when I saw the WordPress Weekly Challenge was geometry I had to alter it to Water in week 2. You see I got a bit obsessed this week with photographing parabolas. A very basic explanation of a parabola is a sort of U shape that is basically symmetrical. There is a compicated algebraic equation you can use to plot where the line (or object if you are being practical) will fall. Essentially ‘what goes up must come down’ covers it mainly and you can add and you can predict where it will come down in relation to where it went up to that. I have found personally no reason to use the equation in life although you can find examples of parabolas around. A maths teacher friend of minepointed out that the arch made by throwing a ball in a lob is a parabola and you can say the same for the arch made by the water leaving a hose.
So I made it my mission to photograph a water arch parabola to combine the element of water and geometry! Its not a perfect parabola as you can see, the outside edge of the arch makes a pretty good symmetrical arch and a good impression of one in my opinion.
If you have a burning desire to confuse yourself and/or learn more about parabolas you can find an explanation on Wikipedia here or google parabola. A word of warning. If you decide to do it, prepare yourself with caffeine and a fresh and eager brain at its prime. Parabolas are fascinating, but the maths is best left a mystery unless you absolutely need to do it or have a desire to hurt your brain for no good reason.
Remember if you want to photograph water for Elemental November tag your photos #elementalnovember so we can see them too!
The months seem to be going by faster and faster at this time of the year. November is already nearly here and so I need another photo challenge! I can’t say I have been that impressed with my efforts this month. I think I enjoyed the May photo challenge more. Perhaps it was because I had done it before and so I was less inspired?
Anyway, I think before I challenge myself fully with my December Photo Challenge, The Christmas List, I need to have a chilled out, flexible month. So I have decided to make it Elemental November. For each week in November I will be taking photos of each of the elements. Week 1: Earth, Week 2: Air, Week 3: Fire & Week 4: Water. And I will take a weekend break for the remaining two days before December starts and the silly season is upon us!
If you want to join in you can. Take as many or as few photos as you like. Tag your photos #elementalnovember so I (and anyone else who is interested) can find them and you can leave a link in the comments to your photos. I would love to see them.
Learning the Light 