According to chaos theory or nonlinear studies, seemingly complex systems can be broken down into fractals, and mathematically, fractals don't have to be all that complex. They just look complex when viewed as a set. A mathematician named Benoit Mandelbrot came up with a mathematical formula to create such a set of fractals that now bears his name: the Mandelbrot Set. Clouds are a good example of such a set, and indeed resemble the Mandelbrot Set of fractals. Check Google for mathematically-derived Mandelbrot sets. They're kind of groovy.
These are just clouds. Rather than add a lot of contrast, I just dodged the clouds' highlights at 5% and added a touch of blue. Then I slid the middle slider in LEVELS toward the dark side just a touch. It may be too dark for some, but I like dark photos!
My wife thinks this will do poorly. Maybe it will! It all depends on how much folks know about chaos and chaos theory, or if they interpret clouds to be chaotic, even if they don't know about fractals. I will be interested to see who is confused by the title.
Statistics
Place: 38 out of 85 Avg (all users): 5.3684 Avg (commenters): 5.8000 Avg (participants): 5.1724 Avg (non-participants): 5.4690 Views since voting: 1325 Votes: 171 Comments: 8 Favorites: 0
Good to see a properly mathematical approach to the subject ... though as you expected, it was misunderstood. A privilege to be a neighbour in the placings too ... in fact a little grouping of some seriously talented photographers.
I read the book on the mandelbrot fractals back in highschool and I admit that it is the first thing that came to my mind when I read the challenge topic too. I figured not a lot of people would be familiar with it though, which was obviously the case. I gave this an 8 and think it should have scored much higher.
I"m so glad you did this. I didn't enter since I could not figure out how to photograph Chaos Theory (after my cauliflower refused to cooperate). You did a fine job with this. Hope you get lots more 10s.
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
