Reflected Refractions

Abstract.

A combination of reflective glass windows reflecting glass panels that are refracting light. I like how these huge panes of glass sit neatly and square on the sides of buildings, but they never seem to be completely flat, distorting lines into curves and other bendy shapes like a hall of mirrors.

Reflections

Looking up... or maybe down.

Taken on a clear but very cold December day. I saw that this fountain was full of old autumn leaves. The fountain was also switched off so the surface of the still water was like a mirror, reflecting the lightly clouded sky. The shadow that was cast by the fountain's figure and her podium cut through this mirror like some sort of keyhole and made the leaves in the bottom of the fountain much more visible. My eye was initially drawn to the stillness of the leaves under the water, but when I flipped the image vertically it looked like I had taken a double exposure of the fountain at eye level and some autumnal leaves.

Black, White & Blue

(Regents Park)

The bending reflections of those vertical bars in the water was the first thing that caught my attention. I wanted more than just an abstract image so I waited a few moments for some of the local wildfowl to appear in frame. Fortunately for me the birds that decided to do so were a black and a white one, paddling (floating? wading?) in opposite directions.

Ignore the horse

I remember passing by this window a few times. One day I decided to cross the road and wait for just a few minutes.

The two people lined themselves up nicely, and I like that they both ignored the big wooden horse as well as each other: the woman engrossed in her iPhone/MP3 player, the man in his own thoughts, probably.

I would have preferred a more centred, less-cropped shot, but I had to shoot off-centre as my own reflection in the window was really obvious even though I was on the other side of the road. I suppose a polariser would have been good to have (at least to lessen the reflections in general) but I only have a 52mm polariser and this lens has a 62mm filter, and fiddling with polarisers isn't very efficient when shooting on-the-move. I'm still in the picture (left door reflection, under the awning) but I'm standing in a shadow and my outline is barely visible in this 900px resize.


Last night I had a dream in black and white, which wasn't entirely surreal as it was street photography related. I remember standing around a lot of other photographers in an urban setting, and we were all moving around, trying to line each other up with the backgrounds to shoot some interesting compositions. Nobody really stood still for too long though, we were all looking for that perfect shot. I did manage to get a couple of guys framed up between two vertical structures, and I remember being quite pleased at framing and shooting these fast-moving subjects.

That was pretty odd.

Great Crested Grebe

A little break from black and white.

This grebe was a little browner than I've normally seen them. Is that a seasonal thing? I dunno. They usually don't come too close to the pond edge but this one was only a few metres away from me (older juvenile maybe?) Unfortunately the light wasn't too great and it was wading under a bridge, so I had to bump up exposure to compensate for the 1/500 shutter and play around with the levels to bring some detail back. Final (full-sized) picture is a little grainy, but seeing as I don't have a pro FX shooter I can't really complain.

Good for what ails you

Another antiques/curios shop display window. The bottle reminded me of those old pharmacies with the glass bottle full of a particular coloured liquid. I also liked the grungy colours and textures of the rusty ironwork, the patchy mirror and the painting in the background. This would make a good still life painting. I could probably give it a go in oil paint, once I finish my plague doctor mask.*


*It's almost done, it's just missing a headband of some kind. I just haven't gotten around to photographing it and uploading the pics.

Byebye Kitty

So Kara, my cat in the Philippines died yesterday. Not really sure how or why, just that he was found in the house garden in the morning. He wasn't bloodied up like he'd been in a fight and it wasn't old age (he was only about 3 years old), so it might have been something he ate, or maybe something that bit him. I dunno. While I'm not bawling my eyes out or anything that dramatic, it's pretty sad because he was really friendly with people, unlike our other cats who just aren't used to human contact and will tend to run from you, unless it's feeding time and you have the food.

I took this shot of Kara with my Panny FZ45 last year, moments after a bout of really heavy rain. I saw him taking a quick lick of a puddle so I did the old zoom, point and shoot. I managed to capture a moment when he had his tongue out, which was pretty cool, especially since that camera isn't the fastest performer, particularly when shooting in raw.

He was a cool cat.