Landscape,  Lens-Artists,  Photographic techniques,  Themed galleries

Gallery: on reflection …

June 22, 2025 / 82 Comments

Art is not a reflection of reality, it is the reality of a reflection

Jean-Luc Godard

What is better than seeing a beautiful landscape captured in a photograph? Often, seeing the same landscape twice. A still lake, or if we’re lucky a still river, will allow us to double up the scene and often double the beauty.

We can also have fun, as I did with my feature image taken in Yosemite Valley, and include only the reflection. This can mess with a viewer’s eyes and make them look twice! Only the pebbles ‘in the sky’ give away the fact that you are looking down into a river.

But we aren’t restricted to water when we look for reflective surfaces to enhance our images or give them a different twist. Mirrors of course are reflective, as are windows. And if you keep your eyes open you will find other less obvious options: a well-polished car perhaps, or a pair of sunglasses, or maybe a modern sculpture.

The trick is to be aware of these opportunities and look out for them. We probably all notice a beautiful reflection in a lake, but do we miss others? Many are only obvious from certain angles, so we may need to adjust our position to get a truly reflective photo. Get down low to capture a reflection in a puddle. Shoot from an acute angle to capture one in a skyscraper’s windows. And so on …

Anne is asking us to share such images for this week’s Lens Artists challenge. Earlier this year I took part in a Monochrome Madness challenge with the same theme. I thought it would be interesting to use some of the same images from that post and to follow the same format. But I haven’t ‘mirrored’ that post completely as some images work better in colour, some in black and white.

Some reflections in mirrors

Some reflections in windows

Some reflections in water

Some random reflections

Refractions

Finally, a few refraction shots. Refractions aren’t the same as reflections as we see the image through the shiny surface, not bouncing back at us from it. In a refraction light shifts its path as it travels through the material, causing the light to bend and the image to distort, often appearing upside-down.

But they have a similar appeal so I thought I’d throw a couple in! One you will probably have seen before; it’s an old favourite from the Town Hall Pharmacy in Tallinn. The other two were taken with a lens ball in my local park. A reminder that I should take this out more often!

82 Comments

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