Saturday 28 May 2022

One thing I enjoy doing is photographing natural patterns. Something about the patterned chaos of nature is very attractive to me. Here are four images from our most recent trip to the north shore of Lake Superior, taken in May 2022.

Here are two images of foam in a backwater on the shore. I like how the precussion of the waves has built up ridges upon ridges of foam – in the first picture it looks almost woven. I like, too, that the threads of foam are in turn inflected by the flow of the backwash as it interacts with shore and rocks.

Here is another image from the same trip. It is a pattern of lichen on a rock. I presume, but do not know, that there are different colonies of lichen contending for the same patch of rock/sun, and that they have arrayed defenses against encroaching colonies creating a bordered patchwork, like a small continent of countries :

From October 2019, brought to mind by the lichen, are some images of a fungus on Maple leaves in Yosemite Valley. I’m intrigued by the speckled brown centers, which I imagine contain sporangia, surrounded by the halos of green (chlorophyll?). These different fungal colonies seem less hostile to one another than in the case of the lichen, since they appear to sometimes merge.

Enjoy.

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