The Concepts: Reflections

Korean War Memorial, Washington DC

Many of my favorite pieces involve a reflection of some kind: windows, water, even the smooth granite walls of the Korean War and Vietnam Veterans Memorials.  Like a less vain variation on the myth of Narcissus, the reflections seem to force us to stop and take an introspective moment for ourselves. 

On the technical side of things, reflections can be tricky: you have to be careful to catch the light at just the right angle to minimize glare and maximize the impact of your image.  If ever there was a time to turn off your flash, this is it: using a flash will overexpose your subject and add back all that glare you sought to avoid when you positioned yourself for the shot in the first place. 

Edenton Sound, NC

 Moving on to the compositional side of things, you can let your creativity loose with this concept.  A reflection is an inherent dichotomy of what we see versus what we think we see.  On water, the reflected image is often distorted by the waves and currents of the surface, creating tension and movement in your work.  

Facade of Solow Building, NYC

In windows, you have a reversal - usually a mirror image - that puts an unfamiliar twist on something otherwise urbane and pedestrian.   It takes a somewhat interesting building and turns it into a very interesting city scape.  It salvages an otherwise dismally overcast day by concentrating that light into one space, capturing the glints and shadows of the sun and the clouds for you.

It's part of training your eye to find the shot in your surroundings; it's about not just looking at, but looking up and off to the side and maybe even through.  

"Reflections" - atrium of Museo de Reina Sofia, Madrid

The Concepts: Connections

An earlier post about rethinking the mundane had me musing on the idea of corners: bringing things together, serving as a physical connection between different directions.  That spawned a thought process on the idea of connections: how do you capture the connection between two people?

Retiro Park; Madrid, Spain

While portraiture or posed shots tend to make for nice holiday cards and picture frames, those natural shots captured in the moment have always held more power for me. The fluidity of the relationship between the subjects is somehow frozen, almost stolen away to live eternally outside that particular moment.

However, even the standard portrait shoot can provide a chance for those quiet moments.  While collecting headshots for a friend's upcoming novel, her American Eskimo kept a close eye on us.  Getting people to hold still long enough to catch a shot is difficult enough; doing so with an animal whose capacity for reasoning and negotiation is vastly different from ours is an entirely different story.  With plenty of credit to every photographer's best friend - luck - the casual moments were more true to life than any pose could have been:  

Nando and Ashley; Pittsboro, NC

Another friend of mine recently shared his wedding album with me. While there were the requisite posed shots of the wedding party and family members, the more candid shots were by far the most powerful: the quietly contended smile of the bride as he kissed her cheek, the joy on friends' faces as they sent the happy couple off in a shower of sparklers.  Perhaps the most touching was a shot of him and his mother hugging - the pride in her face, the comfort in the way they hugged, and the sheer poetry of that quiet moment between mother and son that was utterly beautiful to witness.

Several years ago, my sister-in-law and I hatched a surprise for my brother's birthday, bringing family and friends from various corners of the country together at Wrigley Field.  The entire day was a cascade of small moments of happiness which strung themselves together into an arc of joy.  Their smiles, their expressions, the placement of her hand on his knee: this was - this forever is - them: