Wildcard 4/What the !@$%^&*

Photoelasticity

I was going to go out with Igor and try the Forced Perspective shot today but it was raining when I got up and it’s raining still (4:00 pm) so there was no chance to get out without getting soaked. Not knowing what else to blip for my last wildcard I googled ‘indoor photography projects’ and found this.

I had some clear plastic knives and forks so that was a start. I used a soft box app on my iPad, set to white light. I put a polarising filter on my camera and it really is as easy as that. As you turn the filter you get different refraction patterns so from one arrangement of cutlery you can get several shots. It’s amazing and well worth an hour or so spent on it.

I don’t pretend to understand the science of it but this may help:
* Photoelasticity is an experimental method to determine the stress distribution in a material. *Wikipedia (who'd have thought my plastic forks and spoons would be so stressed? They just sit in the cupboard all day!!)

**Two polarizers that are crossed ordinarily do not transmit light, but if a stressed material is placed between them and if the principal axis of the stress is not parallel to this plane of polarization, some light will be transmitted in the form of coloured fringes. **Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Thank you to everyone who commented, rated and favourited my blip from yesterday. It was my highest ever number of hearts!! :-))))