Reflecting what? When?

[Jeff Engel]

For a pond to reflect the sky in daylight, it would have a dark bottom.
If you want the pond to reflect surrounding lights at night it should
be dark and surface should be still. Any light from inside the pond
will diminish the reflection off the surface of the pool. Maybe you
should advise the client to buy radio controlled model boats?

 

[David Lee]

Jeff Engel wrote...

For a pond to reflect the sky in daylight, it would have a dark bottom. If
you want the pond to reflect surrounding lights at night it should be dark
and surface should be still. Any light from inside the pond will diminish
the reflection off the surface of the pool. Maybe you should advise the
client to buy radio controlled model boats?

This is total rubbish! The same amount of skylight will be reflected from
the surface whatever the colour or shade of the bottom and light from below
the surface will have no effect at all upon the light reflected from the
surface of the pool. An increasing amount of light transmitted from below
the surface will tend to dominate the reflections and render them less
noticable, which is probably what you mean, but lets try to keep a grip on
the reality of the physics!

David

 

[Jeff Engel]

It's the reality of the design brief that I was keeping a grip on here.
We're all focusing on washing the bottom of the pond and those
reflecting pebbles. It's a reflecting pond, so a pertinent question is:
reflecting what, and when? If 3,000 square feet of a site is not
optimized for REFLECTING, the secondary characteristics must be strongly
compelling. I was also curious about the vantage point. If there is an
adjacent high rise building, or is it viewed from the ground at the edge
of the pond. Maybe I should have suggested catfish farming?

 

[David Lee]

Jeff Engel wrote...

It's the reality of the design brief that I was keeping a grip on here.
We're all focusing on washing the bottom of the pond and those reflecting
pebbles. It's a reflecting pond, so a pertinent question is: reflecting
what, and when? If 3,000 square feet of a site is not optimized for
REFLECTING, the secondary characteristics must be strongly compelling. I
was also curious about the vantage point. If there is an adjacent high
rise building, or is it viewed from the ground at the edge of the pond.
Maybe I should have suggested catfish farming?

Thomas was asking about lighting horizontally in his proposed pond and that
is what we have been concentrating on. However, in terms of absorbtion, the
problem seems identical to the loss of light with depth. The following was
posted in an article by a professional underwater photographer:

"Though exact absorption rates will vary depending upon water conditions,
you can assume that red will disappear at a depth of around 15 to 20 feet,
orange at between 25 to 30 feet, yellow at 45 to 60 feet, green at 70 feet
and at 100 feet, everything will appear blue or grayish green."

David