Nature's patterns

with colours due to polarization (if that isn't a dirty word around here?). For those of you who prefer a natural picture there's the extra and I posted my first thought on Flickr.

       The story and a bit of trivia. Usual afternoon walk with Kiki along the river. The deer were too far away; I didn't see any little critters; but there was still ice on the river in places. The temperature was still 34°F (1.1°C) when I left the house at 14:00. I was looking and snapping along the way until I came to the bridge where I saw rainbow colours reflected off the ice. I twisted my head looking at many angles then took off my sunglasses to put the camera to my eye - what? No colours. Light dawned on my dim brain - the sunglasses are polarized. Not having a polarizing filter in my pocket I experimented with snapping through the sunglasses but I couldn't really see what I was doing but this is the result with a little fiddling in LR. The white spot is an air bubble under the ice and the other artifacts are from the dirty sunglasses.

       Oh, the trivia or fun with light. if you have a pair of sunglasses that you can't be sure are polarized find another pair that you know for sure are polarized - or a polarizing filter. With the lenses parallel turn one through ninety degrees watching for the moment light does not pass through - if this happens then both lenses are polarized. If there doesn't come a point of at least almost total darkness then the sunglasses you were unsure about are not polarized.