Not rain
A well-known feature at Utah’s Zion National Park is Weeping Rock, where water seeps out of the upper part of a rocky overhang. When we visited the place last year on October 22nd I got behind the plane of the dripping water and looked outward through it. A slow shutter speed of 1/40 second let the falling drops leave bright trails that contrasted with the wispy clouds visible above the adjacent mountain.
© 2017 Steven Schwartzman
Lovely job, Steve! 🙂
Dina
March 11, 2017 at 5:41 AM
Thanks, Dina. I don’t recall making an earlier photograph like this one.
Steve Schwartzman
March 11, 2017 at 8:08 AM
Impressive. There’s water outside my window at the moment. I doubt I could make it look as attractive as these water drops.
Gallivanta
March 11, 2017 at 6:05 AM
Hearing about water outside your window brings back the experience from just a few days ago in Whitianga, when heavy overnight rain trapped us for an extra day on the Coromandel Peninsula. I didn’t manage to turn that into anything attractive.
Steve Schwartzman
March 11, 2017 at 8:15 AM
The rain hasn’t stopped in the North Island!
Gallivanta
March 11, 2017 at 8:41 PM
Then we got out just in time. It’s been raining most of the day here in Austin, though only lightly.
Steve Schwartzman
March 11, 2017 at 9:22 PM
You did, indeed.
Gallivanta
March 11, 2017 at 10:34 PM
That is amazing…!
Indira
March 11, 2017 at 7:33 AM
I’m glad it affects you that way.
Steve Schwartzman
March 11, 2017 at 8:18 AM
What an interesting effect you have captured.
melissabluefineart
March 11, 2017 at 7:43 AM
Have you ever painted an effect like that?
Steve Schwartzman
March 11, 2017 at 8:18 AM
Very nice effect. I see your wispy name in the wispy clouds.
Jim Ruebush
March 11, 2017 at 4:28 PM
If my name were William I’d be Will o’ the Wisp; if Claude, Claude of the Cloud.
Steve Schwartzman
March 11, 2017 at 7:17 PM
It not only was clever of you to get behind the falling drops, it was good that they were occasional enough to be captured this way. I can’t remember ever seeing anything quite like it. The lines of the falling drops remind me of star trails made by long exposures at night.
Oddly, they also remind me of some cattails I found after a prescribed burn in Brazoria. Like the drop trails, they were perfectly vertical, stripped by fire to only stalks. I’ve been trying to think of other examples of such straight ilnes in nature. They must exist, but so far I haven’t come up with any.
shoreacres
March 11, 2017 at 5:02 PM
The set of straight things in nature includes a strand of spider silk weighed down by a spider (as when the spider bails out of a perch to get away from a perceived predator). I can see why the lines made by the falling water drops remind you of star trails, even if the rotation of the earth causes the latter to be curved. I don’t think I’ve ever come across burned cattails, but I have seen the remains of those plants standing tall and straight, just as you describe.
Steve Schwartzman
March 11, 2017 at 7:24 PM
A very beautiful capture, Steve! The sound of falling water must be very peaceful, too.
Lavinia Ross
March 11, 2017 at 5:23 PM
I’m afraid I can’t remember the sound of water splattering on the level where I stood. I can remember sheltering my camera with my arm as I quickly moved behind the sparse curtain of drops so I could turn and look outward.
Steve Schwartzman
March 11, 2017 at 7:27 PM