Summary

1) I chose a picture of a mountain range, focusing on three distinct mountains. I picked this image because I thought it was pleasing to look at and visually interesting. It also seemed like a good representation of a quartic polynomial function, since the ups and downs of the mountain peaks resemble the turning points of such a graph.

2) In the context of the mountain range image, each maximum represents the peak of a mountain (the highest point in that part of the graph). Each minimum represents the valley or base between mountains, the lowest point in that area. These turning points help match the natural rise and fall of the landscape.

3) It was a little difficult to get the polynomial graph to match the shape of the mountain image exactly. I had to adjust a few points and even add one or two outliers to get the shape to curve more naturally and resemble the mountains in the photo. After some trial and error, I was able to get the graph to line up in a way that made sense visually and mathematically.