Long exposures on rivers, waterfalls or seascapes generally use prolonged exposure times to obtain a fluid image of the river or seawater. Naturally, it doesn’t allow you to see what’s in the water.

While walking along the Alviela River last July, a typically Mediterranean river with impetuous flows in winter but reduced or very low currents in summer, my attention was drawn to the aquatic American waterweed (Elodea canadensis), a species native to North America but which has dispersed across Europe, namely in Portugal, where it became naturalized.

This dispersion may have contributed to the fact that it was (and still is) widely used in high schools to demonstrate the photosynthetic function, given that if the plant is brightly lit, oxygen bubbles can be seen forming on the surface of the leaves).

The plant had a beautiful light green colour, the water was shallow, and the riverbed contained fragments of rocks of various colours. To obtain the fluidity effect of the river water while not losing sight of the plant, I used 1.6 seconds (and ND filters), having obtained this image.

The water current surrounded a small rock that had partially emerged, and the Elodea undulated with the current. I think the image conveys the feeling of fluidity of river water but also the adaptation of a plant that always lives in water that never stops flowing.