Seaford (2/16/2015)

When I was young, in my early 20s, I studied photography and wanted to become a photographer.  One on the most interesting tricks in the darkroom was solarizing your photograph.  You never really knew what the results would be, but it was always fun.  It came down to putting your sheet of paper under the enlarger and exposing it to light, light every picture you print.  Subsequently, the paper would go into the developer and you were not to agitate the liquid.  At one point, while the picture was developing, you would flip on the light for a few seconds, and in essence your picture would turn black.  At least the areas that were light turned dark.  Simply the developing chemical was not exhausted and still worked.  In the darker areas nothing would happen and the used chemicals would bleed over from the dark areas to the lighter areas, resulting in the fine white lines you see with solarisation.  If you wanted a white picture, you could then put another piece of paper on the developed picture and use the paper as a negative.  Naturally you could do the same with film.  You could really never control the process and the outcome was never really predictable for me.  Now in modern days computer algorithms do all the work.  This picture was taken with my phone and I have the computer do all the work.  Still the results are fascinating, if you do not over use it.

This picture was taken at the yacht club.  It has been really cold these past few days and today we are expecting snow.  Evidence of the cold is the freezing of the water in our creek.  The water is saline, and you know it must be cold when an ice sheet forms.  NOAA tells me that saltwater freezes at 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit or -2 Celsius.   Even the solarized picture above shows the ice hanging off the lines that keep the boats in their place.  The picture below shows the ice on the side of one of the piers.  The ice is covering the shoreline as it is deposited by the tides.  Above the ice is the Spartina alterniflora shore.  This plant (smooth cordgrass) lives in the tidal areas on the east coast, and is an invasive weed on the west coast.  This past weekend we had a talk at the yacht club on sea level rise, and this is one of those plants that will be feeling the pinch.  It does not like constant inundation or feet that are too dry.