Drop Shots!
"reflections on
the waterdrop"
stephen langton goulet
A south facing picture window frames a winter garden, Saanich
Inlet, the Gowland Range and in a few gaps,
the Olympics beyond.
It’s a sublime view especially when clouds blow in from
the southwest across the Malahat Hills
and fatten themselves
above the Inlet before moving on. Winter rain and snow falls on
the sod roof and
drips off the edge
of the fascia as it has for years. I'd always looked
through the waterdrops to the world beyond
oblivious
to the remarkable event occurring over and over right
before my eyes.
Shooting icicles in late
December. They are irresistible, hanging from the edge of the roof,
sparkling in the morning sun
against a deep blue sky. I was setting the focus when
a drop fell from the tip of one. It flashed by in stop action
through the viewfinder. I thought I noticed
a thin brief stem connecting the drop to the icicle like an umbilical
chord.
After several dozen attempts I caught a drop at
the moment of release.
Over the following few days the ice
melted away and the roof began to drip like a beaded curtain.
Water
molecules draw closer to each other at a surface forming a thin elastic
membrane.
Surface tension, (viscosity) allows a pin to float or
an insect to skim across it without sinking or even getting wet.
The same tension holds water before it drops allowing
it to stretch like a balloon.
Caught at this stage with a busy sky behind
it has all the appearance of a vase full of clouds.
A waterdrop detaches pulling a thin stem after.
The remaining reservoir spirals
down inside
filling a spinning sphere. Together they
hang for the barest fraction of a second, a liquid pendulum.
As the drop breaks free surface tension
momentarily
closes the end of the stem.
Inside, the spiraling drain compresses like a spring.
The stem reopens and a sequence of smaller spherical
drops emerge
in a segmented line reminiscent of the body of
a dragonfly.
Tiny connecting links, vestiges of the original
stem, separate between the chain
forming miniature dense spheres of their own. Plunging
through the larger, slower drops
they leave umbrella shaped fountains in their
wake.