“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” This famous line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner refers to being surrounded by water at sea and it being undrinkable by humans because of its salinity.
I became fascinated by the variety of shapes water can take after photographing surfers on a bright Winters day in Porthleven, Cornwall. The high rolling waves were beautifully backlit by sun shining through the water as it thinned out towards the crest of each wave. At high shutter speeds it looked just like green glass.
I later undertook some water drop collision photography during lockdown and again was amazed at the variety of shapes and interactions seen captured at high shutter speeds and with flash to freeze the motion.
Whilst capturing waves reaching the shores along the coast near to where I live, I noticed the intricate patterns formed by incoming and outgoing waves and and more patterns formed as the waved crashed over rocks or against the sea groynes.
So began my “Shapes of water” project trying to capture the infinite variety of shapes and forms made by water interacting with itself, gravity and solid objects.
Its physical properties make water a unique substance to support life. For example the anomalous expansion of water (the fact that it it becomes less dense as it freezes, going from 4 to 0 degrees) means ice floats while fish can survive in deeper, warmer water. This occurs because molecules of water form open crystal structures when in a solid form.
Some of its properties are due to its small molecules (H2O) being bound together by hydrogen bonds. This bonding gives rise to other properties such as its surface tension - allowing some insects to walk on its surface, its high specific heat capacity meaning that water retains and loses heat slowly meaning its temperature is more stable throughout different weather seasons - again good for aquatic life, and, being a polar substance (the molecule is more negatively charged at the hydrogen end and more positively charged at the Oxygen end) means it is good at dissolving things - particularly other polar substances. It is also important for transpiration - which is the means by which water can get to the top of tall trees, as the molecules of water adhere together and as the top-most molecules evaporate, others are pulled up behind them overcoming the effect of gravity.
Water Boatmen are able to walk on water due to its inherent surface tension