Portugal. The Douro River. (Water Patterns) (September 2019)
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The Douro River provides its own watery entertainment for river travelers. The river's surface reflects the light from the sky and the dark shadows of river banks and looming hillsides. Light permitting, the green of foliage and crops infuses the reflected shadows. These reflections are constantly changing and are as unique in the ripples and wavelets of the river as snowflakes. Whether they are indeed unique, never repeating, never to be repeated some day in the future, requires faith in the validity of Chaos Theory.
These watery patterns are mesmerizing for a curious spectator. But because everything is in constant motion, including the ship traveling 17-20 feet per second, seeing and absorbing and analyzing these patterns is nearly impossible: by the time an intriguing patch of water and its graphic designs register on the spectator, the ship has moved on. A camera helps, allowing a chance to study later what was seen only momentarily. These images were mostly taken with a short telephoto lens that could isolate promising fields of light and dark. But even the camera was challenged by the constant flux of the river's displays, and the lens was as likely to capture a nondescript moment as a moment of interest. And as always, "interest" is a term freighted with subjectivity in the world of photography. Objective observers could easily differ.
On dark days, the strong contrast allows little color to come through, resulting in strong graphic images. The graphic designs in first five photos range from relatively large shapes to small, tight patterns.
Foliage and crops on the riverbanks and hillsides can, light permitting, color the reflected shadows.
The ship adds its own patterns: the long curved highlights and shadows that run from the bottom of the image are from the bow wake; the flatter curves in the upper right hand corner are from the stern wake.
The reflections can be more specific. Individual trees are reflected between the dark green shadow and the light sky.
The luminous riverside house throws off a bright reflection amid the green reflections of the foliage.
Wake and burbles disturb the reflected sunset and evening sky.
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After a lifetime of mainly expressing myself with words, my postings here will mainly rely on images. They will speak for themselves to some extent, but I'll usually add a few comments of explanation. I've taken photographs for decades, since the 1950's, inspired in part by my father's photographic skill. Four years of photo assignments and quality darkroom time eventually gave way to decades of casual and family picture-taking. I re-immersed myself when I left film and turned to digital.