View allAll Photos Tagged fracture
This morning it told me to stop. Had a closer look...
Processed in HDR.
PS: I think about this as an add on to chain reaction; we all are fractured, we all got something saint on the other side of our soul's fractures, those metal grips symbol of the force to be applied to open up our hearts and minds...
We tend to take for granted the integrity of the foundation of our everyday lives. But the solid icy surface of modern civilization only runs so deep. Once in a while the cracks appear and make us enormously aware of our own vulnerability. And maybe our shared humanity as well? While there have been many trying events in my life, few have had the kind of global resonance that the current Coronavirus pandemic has. My prayers go out to all those affected personally. For the rest of us, it is an opportunity to reflect on the fragility of life and what we value most deeply.
It seems almost a lifetime now, but just a few short weeks ago I had a couple of days to explore the crazy, frozen environs of Abraham Lake in Alberta Canada. While frozen lakes are not exactly unusual in Canada (home to approx. 60% of the world's lakes, almost 100% of which will be frozen in February), Abraham Lake is quite unique among them, being a glacial runoff lake (fed by the indescribable turquoise runoff of the Canadian Rocky Mountain glaciers), a man-made lake of recent origin (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lake), and most importantly, a location that is subject to nearly continuous scouring by intense winds in the winter.
On the relatively mild days I was there, wind speeds ranged from 10-40mph, gusting even higher at times. At one point the wind managed to physically push me about 20 feet down the ice. While I was wearing ice cleats. It literally left deep groves on the ice where my boots were digging in while the wind pushed me. That is an insane level of wind force. The upside is that the wind cleans off much of the snow from the ice surface (nature’s own Zamboni) and lays bare the surprisingly varied beauty of the ice formations underneath.
The ice is of course subjected to major stresses during the winter which result in huge cracks across the surface such as those seen here. However, the ice is also remarkably thick (12-24 inches here, at a guess), and more solid than it often looked. Even more uniquely, the decaying organic material creates methane bubbles that get trapped in the ice during the winter. The layers of methane bubbles combined with the crazy lines of fractured glacial ice create a visual field almost unprecedented in its weirdness, and the incredibly discomfiting effect that has on one's own sense of preservation.
it's also a perfect metaphor for the wild fracturing occurring in the broader world as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
I took many shots on Abraham Lake, but in some situations I found it either impossibly tedious or outright impossible to get the shot I wanted with the DSLR and a tripod (remember, 40mph winds!), and so I resorted to a lot of shots with my iPhone while lying on my belly. This is one of those. Not ideal. But it works.
A quick personal shout-out here to my good friend John Cohn. I placed a "Sam Stone" at the nearby Aurum Lodge, a great little B&B that is the perfect home base for exploring Abraham Lake. John created Sam Stones to honor the memory of his son Sam and I am honored to have a few of these in my possession. If you find this, or any other, SamStone please record your find at www.samstones.org and feel free to re-home it and keep the chain going.
Stay safe and wash your hands my friends!
Clearing weather gave rise to this amazing phenomenon moving away from me as I shot this scene from the slopes of Frenchmans Cap
The Golden Gate on the Loop Road south of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park runs through a canyon along Glen Creek called the Golden Gate.The cayon wall expose Huckleberry Ridge Tuff, which erupted during the first volcanic cycle of Yellowstone about 2.1 million years ago. This outcrop of the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff lies about 20 km north from the rim of the caldera that formed as a consequence of its eruption. The tuff extends in a finger like shape north outside the caldera. Based on the distribution of the tuff, geologists postulate that the ash may have flowed down a broad river valley that existed before the eruption and filled or partly flled the valley. Subsequent cooling, faulting, and uplift caused the fractures.
References: Robert L. Christiansen; The Quaternary and Pliocene Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana; U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 729-G
I was trying to just post one image a day. It's gone out of the window a bit as I need to get through what I've got a bit quicker. I doesn't help that I keep adding new ones as quick as I'm finishing off the older ones. Anyway, one from the weekend to accompany the Lofoten Islands one posted earlier.
I made an effort to go and get a few more details of my favourite rocky spot on the beach, to try and consolidate a number of shots from this location into a sort of collection. I am particularly happy with the way this one turned out. It seems to sun up all the natural elements that I find exciting to look at. It just makes me feel good.
Long exposure from the rugged coastline of Torndirrup National Park near Albany in Western Australia. Fast moving clouds prompted me to bring out a six stop neutral density filter and run the exposure up to four minutes to get the most of that motion in the sky. I also liked the fractured, rocky foreground that had so much detail in it. It fitted with the overall dark mood that I was going for.
Created for TMI's July/August challenge: "In the Style of ... Abstract Art ...
And for the Handheld Art contest: "Flower Power".
My photo processed with iColorama, Leonardo and Stackables on the iPad ... and finished off with Photoshop on the iMac.
Group of woodland timber which has probably fallen to the ground due to disease. I love the chaos of these scenes and the way the weather dries and bleaches the wood.
Thank you for taking the time out to look... I hope you like it
Four of us stood here on Isthmus Bay contemplating the scene. It was gloomy but pretty! I had been here 10 days previously for a very nice sunrise and the water levels were a good 3 foot lower and this old concrete jetty was high and dry!
What a difference a week or so can make to the water levels in the Lake District. I know we will probably have 4 versions of shots from this spot and "Andy Rouse" posted the colour version I had planned yesterday, so I've gone for a grainy, moody, square crop in black and white.
The square crop was a forced choice really as the Magician Pete Rowbottam was strategically placed just in the right sector of the full shot and I've just managed to clone out his tripod leg to get this. The other member "Muddy Boots" was agitating over to the left playing with his video head and metallic lens cap, quite tuneful to listen too really, if you like "timpany".
This is a classic shot across Derwent Water with the shapely Cat Bells ridge to the left and Causey Pike to the right of the jetty in the distance. There is a swish new boathouse directly opposite too.
Back to my local for a bit of angular slate. I liked the colours, the sheen, and the ambiguous scale.
The village of St Germans lies on the River Tiddy, part of the beautiful estuary of the Lynher which joins the River Tamar close to Saltash in S.E. Cornwall.
The 106 ft high St Germans Viaduct carries the train over the River Tiddy and on to Plymouth.
Any guess what this is? :-)
The reflection of one building in another in London's "City".
I don't recall exactly which buildings, but it was in the vicinity of the Llyods building.
Between Torrey Utah and Capitol Reef National Park lies a fractured and tilted landscape of mountains, valleys, and ridges.
Fractured Highway, Route 190out of Furnace Creek, Death Valley, CA - Copyright 2015 Martyn Phillips, M4Photo.
Heading out on the road one morning, Paul pulled the car over at the side of the road and we dodged cars and trucks to get this image looking back down the way that we had come. Paul’s choice of location was perfect and I just love the colours in the sky and the location of the elevation sign at the side of the road. Mixed with the repairs in the road’s surface, this image is full of interest and it is one that I have come back to time and time again.
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