Hmmm, it is very close to fire ban season here and we have just had a week of very hot days, so I am not super keen to light fires. Here is one I happened to see. Obviously a farmer was doing their burning before fire ban started.
I also did a black and white image…mainly to pad out a week pretty thin on photos. Not sure which I prefer. Probably colour as usual.
This is my final week of Elemental November and I will be attempting to find images of FIRE. As it happens, it was my Dad’s birthday yesterday so I am starting off with a photo of the fire on his cake.
I thought I would post the final air photo I took. It was taken Wednesday, but I haven’t got to it until now so although it is technically fire week I am still posting it.
Trying to capture the essence of the breeze
I was taking photos of my family this afternoon and felt like I wanted to share this one. I liked something in the composition. Not sure what. Obviously my son’s great big eyes are a plus and I like the quirkiness of whatever it is he is doing with his tongue there?!, but the frame just feels right to me. Sometimes I get that feeling and can’t put my finger on why. I suppose as I get better at photography and learn more about composition I will be able to put an answer to the whys more often. And it does technically fit the Elemental November theme of air…W is in the background swinging through the… (giant mental leap and slight brain fuzziness needed to include photo, just go with it OK?)
A man and his kite.
I loved how casual he was about his kite flying. I can never get kites to stay off the ground for longer than a couple of minutes, but he could stand there and ponder the ocean while it hovered above him.
the tiger floating in the sky
I found it hard to think of anything for renewal. The obvious came to mind – photo of new growth. No need though, looking through plenty of photos out there showed me that that aspect had been thought of and photographed very nicely by plenty of people. I also thought of my own situation. Immediately renewal of marriage vows came to mind, but we have only been married for five years and organising that for a weekly challenge is possibly a bit much.
So when I was trying to think of water photos it occured to me that water is the ultimate in renewal. It washes away yesterday and makes way for today. It allows us to start fresh. And on a basic level an evening bath lets us wash away the days grime and start tomorrow fresh….and clean….relatively where kids are concerned anyway.
W interacting with water is way more interesting than an adult so here he is. Check out the facial expression in the second photo! Priceless.
circle
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!
Learning the Light 