Marja-Leena Rathje
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patterns in sand



SandPatternMcK2010.jpg


SandPattern2_McK2010.jpg


SandPattern3_McK2010.jpg


SandPattern4_McK2010.jpg

Marja-Leena | 03/06/2010 | 14 comments
themes: Canada and BC, Nature, Photoworks


14 comments

These are wonderful. They made me think of the hide of an elephant - a wet elephant emerging from a muddy pool.

And I have loved seeing all your images from your recent holiday - so many kinds of satisfying and intriguing views of an obviously gorgeous place.

ooh these are weird, like lips, like skin, maybe an elephant's...

How mysterious "ordinary" things can look when they are isolated images. These have such a wonderful wet sheen to them, but sadly, that reminds me of the oil hitting all of the beaches in the southern U.S.

These photos of small ripple patterns brought to mind something Jerry and I have been reading about in a book on the ice ages. There is a place in eastern Washington called the Channeled Scablands where a geologist (Bretz) realized, after seeing aerial photos, that the land forms were giant ripples, and must have been created by a catastrophic flood. The flood was from water that had been dammed by ice and was suddenly released when the ice dam broke. Scale is so interesting.

Odd and beautiful. Remarkable images, thank you!

I find it fascinating to see how 'artificial' natural material can look when the colour is unexpected.

I see a whale tail in the first one. It sort of reminds me of the surface of icicles, too. Yet warmer. I don't know if I would be brave enough to take off my shoes and walk in the sand.

Jean and Firebird, it amazes me what others see in some of my images or photos! Of course these photos seem unrealistic but it was the odd light, cloudy but with sharp sun piercing through at times, glaring off the wet sand. The camera compensated by making things dark, but I left it for it's quite intriguing looking. Elephant hide is not what came to me though, so thanks for that!

Bee, yes, I see what you mean by that oily dark sheen! Just imagine one's favourite coastlines covered!! It makes me so angry that this can happen... but mustn't get into a rant now.

Anne, oh, I remember another commenter, a couple of years ago, mentioning the same area to me - a very fascinating one! Scale is indeed fascinating. I've taken these kind of photos in the past too and they really do look like aerial shots of landscapes.

Leena, kiitos!

Olga, yes, these are really strange being so black - see my first comment reply...

R, again another visual interpretation - fascinating! As for getting one's feet wet, some brave souls were doing it but not I!

I came here from Jean's blog. These are succulent.

I can see that I'm not the only one who saw the similarity with elephant hide!

wonderful.

These really are exceptionally nice images and refreshing to see pictures of wet sand without oil mixed with the matrix.

So far as scale is concerned it's true about high altitude images showing the results of catastrophic flooding after the last Ice Age are available from many sources. It's interesting to realize that people were around when these events transpired and no wonder there are cultural memories of a great flood all over the world.

Lilian, thanks for visiting and commenting. 'Succulent' makes these sound tasty :-)

Taina, you too?! Thanks.

Susan, glad you like these photos. The myths and stories of great floods are indeed quite universal, aren't they? Are we heading for another?

I just went hiking in the Scablands! I posted one photo and have a couple more I may post. I need to go back there, because it wasn't possible for me to get the kind of feel for the place I would like in the short time there.

Hattie, really! I thought Scablands was closer to the Canadian border, though I could be wrong. I'd love to see your photos.