For many years I have enjoyed
photographing reflections in water. The resultant, often abstract images
produced usually have no significance other than being aesthetically pleasing
and so have little or no value for my course work. Nevertheless, the variety of
images that can be produced in this way is staggering and I intend to
self-publish a book of my favourite reflection images once all OCA course work
has been completed.
Canals are particularly rich
sources of reflections. The towpaths allow the photographer to stay close to
the action; bridges, walls and fences close to the canal produce some
interesting results and, most importantly, the canal water is relatively still.
Perturbation of the water by passing water traffic, water birds or even the
wind produces ripples that in turn give rise to the abstract shapes that I
enjoy photographing.
During a 5-6 mile walk along the
River Lee navigation canal in North London (between Northumberland Park and the
Olympic Stadium) I took a variety of “reflection abstracts”. The following grid
of four images, taken during the walk, reflects (excuse the pun) a few of the
different types of effects that can be produced: minimal post-production
processing using “Photoshop Elements 8” was used and the images were then cropped
to uniform (7x5) format (see below).
Image
Beyond enjoying whatever
aesthetic qualities these images may possess and taking opportunities to
represent structures such as pylons in a (variably) abstract manner I have
often wondered whether it would be possible to photograph, say, an event in
this way and then challenge observers of the resultant image to re-construct
the event from the clues provided. For the time being these ideas remain on the
drawing board.
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