- The shaft comes down from the clouds, not from the top of the photograph. In fact the top border of the shaft is ragged making it appear that it dropped from under the clouds. Given the fact that the shaft goes to the bottom of the picture, it seems strange that it does not go to the top of it.
- The right edge of the shaft has two lines, so there is a sliver of a more lightly shaded area. To me this seems to give it a kind of dimensionality.
I am certain someone will fill me in on this (Please help!), and the answer will definitely be more pedestrian than an alien space-ship. However, seeing it has brought to mind for me how uncomfortable it now feels not to have an immediate answer. The hegemony of Google and assorted search engines gives us access to a universe of answers that would have required phone calls to experts, trips to libraries, or extended stays at institutions of higher education. This blog entry is not a rant against our easy access to information, but rather it is a recognition that we are becoming less and less comfortable with not having every mystery explained in the moments right after we identify it.As a teacher I sense that we should be doing a better and better job of equipping students to extend investigation and to sustain inquiry. This will require better questions and imaginative uses of class time in order to fend off instincts to provide a quick answers. The real problems of the world demand that we don’t mislead our students into thinking that we can find peace in the middle east or even the explanation of a shaded shaft of shade in a photograph from the first page of a google search.
You should send this astonishing picture to the news broadcasters and weather specialists. Absolutely stunning.
I am really looking forward to the answers you receive on this one; and what if there is no answer?
Ross,I think the shaft you see there is an artifact from how the iPhone and many digital cameras take pictures. The iPhone doesn’t have a shutter per se, instead, it captures an image line by line, and this can produce some very interesting effects, especially when compared to what we are used to seeing with cameras that operate with shutters. Here’s a gallery of other images that show this effect, and you can find lots more by searching for “rolling shutter effect”. It’s a great image, and further proof that you don’t need expensive photo equipment to catch captivating shots.
Where the foreground and background come together, there seems to be a dark ribbon. It looks as if there was land in the distance, or a platform, and that object was a built item. It also makes sense with it not going to the top and having dimension. Not knowing where exactly you were and what direction you were looking, it is hard to rule out that the lighting did not just illuminate a distant structure (perhaps a rig or a barrier built for some weather related purpose). It is also impossible to find out if there is a structure without that information. It looks like it would have to be massive but that may be a trick of the light and water. I at least find it more likely that a real object was somehow emphasized by the photo effects than that something not there at all could be seen, not just by the camera but also by your wife and brother-in-law.
Margo, the preceding comments are extremely clear. They also serve to answer the challenge you pose, “As a teacher I sense that we should be doing a better and better job of equipping students to extend investigation and to sustain inquiry.” Taking a course on concepual physics, without the terror of numbers that bog so many inquisitive and creative minds, youngsters learn that light behaves in ways at times just as strange as adolescents. At times acting like a wave; at others, like a particle, it defracts and refracts and slows down and speeds up selectively by color. The wonders of nature are but a question away from discovery by those who have the time and curiosity to ask them. Like you!
Extend and sustain–indeed. Thank you for those verbs in the context of work with students. I cannot solve the mystery of the shaft, but I will say that I am reading an essay by Wendell Berry, called “Poetry and Place” from his book STANDING BY WORDS. In this (extended and sustained) essay he begins by comparing Dante and Milton, specifically the former’s humble acceptance of mystery and the latter’s indecorous attempt to capture the voice of the divine. I am intrigued by his analysis, and your cultural comment about easy answers reminds me of it.