Riddle?

[vaneramos]

I love puzzling photographs, but I didn't realize the first image in my previous post would be difficult to figure out, but I know the context. If you can explain what's happening there, please do. Otherwise, I might have to clarify it myself, and post the original image from which that one was (slightly) cropped. Or I could just leave leafshimmer wondering.

Meanwhile, since this morning's walk, snow has hit, and it's looking heavy. In less than an hour the bare ground has been covered.

Comments

[dakoopst.livejournal.com]

Looks like the frozen surface of a lake, with trees translucently reflected, and a patch of open water in the middle....

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Sure enough. Actually it was no more than a flexible frozen skin on the edge of the river, with an overhanging branch reflected. Here's the original image from which the other was cropped.

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

After reading Dakoopst's post, I went back, and finally got what I was looking at.

It really did look like human skin. But it was the skin of the river.

xo Shimmer

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting analogy. There's one spot in the Eramosa downstream from this spot where the water tends to run shallow and ripples over some stones. Once I was startled by my own vivid imagination of a writhing snake with iridescent scales. I like snakes, so this was a pleasant vision for me.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Hm. When you first posted it, I was puzzled. It did seem to be a water surface. Your post was about birds, specifically geese, and the pattern in the middle seemed to be vaguely bird-shaped, but it sure didn't look like a goose.

Then when you posted this, I looked at it again (before reading any of the comments) and realized what it was (although I too didn't realize it was the river). I think I was having a depth-perception problem the first time.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The difficulty in finding a point of reference with respect to depth is what makes this image ambiguous. I didn't see it at first because I knew the context.

[artricia.livejournal.com]

It kind of looks like a misty car-window, which someone has wiped a clear streak in.

Thanks for the original photo. I'm not sure I would have believed you. I don't know tht I've ever actually seen water in the process of freezing.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I can see the car-window thing. That's neat.

I don't know whether I have ever seen ice quite like this, but I get all kinds on the river throughout the winter. There's so much warm run-off from the storm sewers that part of the river usually remains free of ice, so it's constantly moving and transforming.

[bluebellrock.livejournal.com]

That photo took a while loading, and I was flummoxed at first by all the greyness (I too have been riding out a depressive episode). Suddenly I decided I'd commit to getting my perception in sync with the image, and no sooner had I done so than I thought, "Aha! How very Canadian!" It reminds me of a time I spent in Nova Scotia 14 years ago (a time I actually experienced chronic depression)... but until your own comment above, I'd never heard of a flexible skin of frozen water. Now I'm fascinated by the surface tension of water like I used to be. Here in Australia it's too hot to be inside, far too hot to be outside, and the cicadas are chirruping up a sunstorm. Hey, it must be Christmas. Lovely photo, and excellent (brave) cropping.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Canada seems to be the place to see a diversity of snow and ice conditions. I don't think I have ever seen ice quite like this. In the upper righthand corner of the original image you can actually see the sheet rippling gently. These waves came from the flock of geese, which had moved to the far side of the river as I approached.

I have another LJ friend in Australia, and it's fun to catch the different seasons in his posts and photos.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Aha! So there are geese in that picture, at least by implication.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes! I took pictures of them swimming acroos the river, but those weren't very interesting.

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

if i remember me water bodies right. it is a lake or stream where ice is forming or thawing and only the one part is still water with no ice crystals in it?! Am I somewhere close on that one?

be well bub,
outward action sounds good to me. Sometimes when I have the funk I have to do just that, make myself move. get up and go. walk, go out, explore some new area or learning.

any way be well
ciao

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yep, this is at the edge of what I have started calling the pond, a wider section with an island in the river where I walk regularly.

Thanks for the encouragement. Big hugs.