Reflections click this to go to mr nicholls reflection pintrest page
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I chose reflections because while completing my fragment work I noticed that as well as fragments the places I was walking though were filled with reflections which made me want to look into it more (see "Reflections in fragments" on my fragments page) which intrigued me to look for ways to reflect things in different ways and take photos of the object from different angles and so on but always get a certain side in the reflection. (on the left is examples of reflection photography)
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Noel Bennett
Noel Bennett is a photographer who is interested in all kinds of photography but his favourite type of photography is landscape photography, these photos from the lake district caught my eye due to the amazing reflections in the water nearby and some of them look almost unreal due to the beauty and cleverness put into each photo. I am hoping to try to get more natural photos with the idea of these in mind but I don't know if I will be able to due to London being a very urban environment unlike the lake district. You can look at all of the wide range of Noel Bennett's work by clicking here: http://www.noelbennettphotography.co.uk/
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This is my favourite photo by Noel Bennett because I like how it combines both the urban side of the lake district (the net) with the natural wildlife and views, I especially like how each one of the poles has a bird on almost like it was posed and how you can see each birds reflection in the water below it.
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Natural reflections
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I am interested in Natural reflections because I find it interesting how amazing the reflections are and how fast the environment is disappearing so in the far future these reflections might become extinct and these reflections are one of the most interesting subjects of photography in my mind and it will be a shame if they disappear.
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Urban reflections
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I am also interested in urban reflections because I live in London so most of the places I go to are urban landscapes and I find it interesting how every piece of glass has a different reflection and how much of the world is hidden with most photos and how a simple reflection can show the atmosphere of the area in the photograph.
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I am going to take both Urban and natural reflections so I am hoping that I will be able to combine both concepts and make some photos that combine the two and come out really interesting to look at like Noel Bennett's photos. I am hoping to travel about and look out for puddles, glass and mirrors around London and get a range of images from both Environments and find a great way to tie/display them together.
Urban reflections around the school
I walked around the school on a wet day to see how many reflections I could find and what the reflections can show about my surroundings at the time and place I was at, it also amazed me how many reflections you can find on a daily basis which everyone seems to overlook and it surprised me how many can be in a single place at a single time, even as I write this the computer screen has a amazing reflection which could show a lot about my surroundings. |
Lee Friedlander
Lee Friedlander (born July 14, 1934) is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 70s, working primarily with 35mm cameras and black and white film, although he took all kinds of photos he particularly famous for the photos of shop windows, car wing mirrors and photos of him self using mirrors in his room. I am mainly interested in his photos of windows and car wing mirrors which show his surroundings and what he is looking at without actually seeing a full picture of it, I like this idea because you get multiple pictures in a single picture and they overlap onto each other and you find it hard to see which one is the image and which one was real.
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Reflections at Blue-water
I took these photos on a rainy day at Blue-water, I went to Blue-water for a surprise for my upcoming birthday but I also thought that since it was a rainy day and Blue-water is full of windows it would be a good idea to bring my camera since it would be a shame to let the opportunity to go to waste. the photo of the white car from the front a member of my family took but it had a good reflection on the front as well as showing me at the young drivers driving course.
Reflections in a Room
This is a collection of photos of reflections in my photography classroom I wanted to see how many different reflections I could see and photograph in the room alone I am going to try redoing this idea at home and I believe I could of taken a lot more photos of reflections in the classroom if I did not get sidetracked with the idea below.
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Reflections using my phone
For these photos I used my phone like a portable mirror and used it t take photos of things behind and next to me while keeping part of the camera uncovered so it would take a photo of what was behind and in front of me at the same time. Positioning myself for the photos however was difficult and took time as well as having to change the lens focus for every photo but the end result was a type of photo I have never seen before in I am interested to see how I can incorporate this in to the rest of my work.
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I then modified the images by using settings in photoshop to change the threshold levels and turn the picture to black and white then I tried to overlap the original image and the new image but unfortunately only one or two of the options worked to combined both images and they weren't to interesting to look at.
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Reflections using different lens
These are images I took with a 55-250mm lens. At first I found it extremely disorientating and annoying since I was close to a reflection but it appeared out of focus and/or to zoomed in on the target but after around 4 to 5 photos I got the hang of it but the distance of the length I stood back from the reflection varied with each photo some half way down a corridor to 3 small steps back. I would use this lens to take photos of objects and wildlife high up on buildings or down a road without disturbing it but I prefer using the normal camera lens (18-55mm) that I use to take photos normally since I don't need to worry about the distance of the target in correspondence to me.
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Barry Toranto
Barry Toranto was intrigued by photography and attended his first workshop in 1973 at The Naples Mills School of Arts and Crafts near Ithaca, New York. His college career yielded a BA in photography from Goddard College in 1978 and included a semester at the San Francisco Art Institute. His vision in photography is to capture and express images that both embrace and reach beyond the here and now and ultimately, see the world in a new and different light. His photos of reflections in shop windows reminds me of my task at the moment to take photos of reflections in shop windows, this subject in particular interests me because not only can you see everything inside the shop you also see what is happening outside of it and sometimes it might be hard to tell which one is which. You can see all of Barry Toranto's photos on his website by clicking here: http://www.barrytoranto.com/
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This is my favourite photo by Barry Toranto because of the light and the colours in the photo being a key aspect and the reflection being the perfect thing for the picture since the shop and the reflection not clashing and going well with each other as well as this you also see Barry Toranto in the reflection which suits the feel of the picture very well.
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Photos taken using the large mirror.
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Using the mirror I tried taking pictures of reflections from all different types of prospectives around the room usually taking photos with it by leaning it on a chair or desk then I took a photo from all the way from across the room of another object so I would get two perspectives in the same photograph.
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Reflections of myself.
These photos are my reflections in different windows, doors and objects around school I took inspiration from my previous images which contain my reflection as well as this I also noticed that some of Lee Friedlander's and Barry Toranto's images contained their reflections as well this made me think about using my reflection techniques to not take photos of objects but myself unfortunately the light was quite dim so it was harder than usual to take photos of my reflection.
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Work towards my final piece
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I decided to carry on with the split phone photographs because it inspired me to split the photo so you cannot tell the image from the reflection as well as create another collage so the image becomes disformed and the images is difficult to tell apart from each other.
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I tryed many different ways to blend the images into the collage but I found the simple fade option with brighten was the best choise for my idea overall since it kept the idea of the image being split in two and being a collage which matched what I wanted for my final piece.
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Overall final piece
These are my final pieces the top image was simple to produce I simply cut the image directly on the 50% mark and turned the right side from colour to black and white while the lower verson I fliped to reverse the image then completed the same steps as the first time to produce a simular result, then each photo has it's own reflection only that the coulor would be reversed.
Evaluation
I am extremely proud of my website and I feel like I have improved since I first started photography and I am now more confident at taking huge risks in my work and traveling ether a long way or staying up to finish a project of mine and I hope it show though out my work, I am also more likely to experiment with my work as well as plan things though instead of going with what was going on at that moment in time. With my work with reflections I felt a lot more confident with myself and planned many different ways that I could attempt a final piece throughout as well as researching other photographers who had the same ideas as me at a certain point in time and used their work to give me multiple options to try out and explore what I wanted to do in such an expansive category without sticking at what i'm good at.