Home»Gallery»Jasper Ridge Galleries»A Day at a Time: Individual Visits»2/17/2023 Water Over the Dam

Water rushes over Searsville Dam and falls down to Corte Madera Creek below. Standing on the dam and looking down, one sees endlessly shifting patterns. The camera reveals more. At a slow shutter speed, smoothly flowing currents drop down waterfalls over solid blocks. [The ear would hear a steady roar.] As the shutter speed increases, individual granular parts of the flow are revealed – and the ear hears an ebb and flow, the impatient pulse of the hurrying water. Fast enough shutter, and each droplet is frozen in midair. [My ears don’t hear notes that high.]

Here is a small selection of the many views I have. Much of the scene is monochromatic; suppressing the color lets us focus on the pattern. But you lose the colors, the steel blue of the rushing water contrasting with the solid brown blocks. Which do you like best?

These shifting patterns are endlessly fascinating, on different time scales, in color and in black and white. If you see one pattern you especially like, let me know and I can show you more at the same exposure timing.

There are other views from the top of the dam this morning. Here is a landscape, past the willows at the far end of the lake, past the serrated ridges beyond, to Skyline. Coots cruise the lake, turning tail up to dive for food.