When they built the M60 round Manchester they had to raise it above the Mersey floodplain to the south of the city. So they excavated gravel nearby and then flooded the huge hole left to provide a recreational area - Sale Water Park - and to help with flood defences over the riverplain. Sometimes, after heavy rain, I go down to the river to the far side of one of the sluice gates to watch the charging runoff. The power of the water coursing through is mesmerising. It roars and churns and roils and some deep instinct makes me take a step back. In quieter weather I often take a walk around the lake and my eye is always attracted by the reed beds dotted along its shores. There is an almost calligraphic precision to the angles of the reed stalks. Like this.
It's hard not to pause and think about the nature of pattern. Is it possible that what appears as chaotic is simply a failure on our part to grasp a bigger context and that what attracts the eye in a scene is some sort of recognition of that?