Water of Life

What started out as a search for another angle on the iris blipped yesterday turned into a way to capture rain effects. There had been a lot of it overnight and the garden really needed it after a long dry spell. We tend to hate it in summer but without it our planet would be a desert like Mars.

The raindrops have gathered on Lady's Mantle with its fan-shaped and tooth-edged leaf. It's a perennial that can take over the garden (genus name alchemilla). However the long-stalked leaves are covered with soft hairs that show a high degree of water-resistance. A thin layer of air penetrates the gap between the water and the leaf so a myriad of water beads form. I've done a fair bit of processing to enhance this visually and was amazed at how a fairly dull plant, that grows easily and smothers the weeds, is the perfect foil for portraying water and its centrality to our universe.