KillerPix Photography Contest: April Showers

The driveway from the street up to our house is concrete. It slopes slightly upwards until it reaches the level spot where the house is situated, and then there is a slight angular change. Due to settling over the years, there is a small difference in the height of the two sections, which allows a puddle of water to form when there is rain.

Drops of rain hitting the puddle create a beautiful pattern of ripples, which is fascinating to watch! In fact, watching the puddle from the covered front porch is a pastime with an almost meditative quality to it. One drop will create a ripple which grows larger, then another drop will create another ripple that intersects with an interesting pattern. More droplets and ripples add to the mix and the scene becomes an intricate dance of water, movement, and complex geometry.

I imagined it would be difficult to capture this wonderful display with a mere photograph, at least with only amateur-level photography skills, but I wanted to try! Several photographs were made until I managed to catch one that halfway expressed the beauty of these dancing water droplets with their tutu-ripples, pirouetting through the puddle.

I went outside after a lovely spring shower and saw droplets of water clinging to the leaves of plants in our yard. This one, in particular, caught my eye as it perched on the very edge of a leaf. From my angle of view, I could see the leaf in half of the droplet, and the rest of the world mirrored in the second half of the droplet. So much wonder is packed into the smallest of things, if we only take a moment to look — and really SEE!