Reflections

Have you seen something that makes your mind race with questions and anticipation to record what you see in photograph? I have and spent the last 4 years attempting to fashion in my photographs the wow factor that I see with my eyes. It is a challenge!

If you are like me, it is the challenge that gets me excited. I am motivated by my perception of reward and that reward is learning how to compose the shot. I am not satisfied with just getting the shot. If I cannot reproduce the shot in some form or another, I did not learn the composition and structure of the shot well enough.

I recently photographed reflective objects. It is by experience in photographing these objects that I learn how to better expect the reflection placement.

For an illustration, the reflective ornaments in the linked picture sat in a bowl in the display window of Neiman Marcus. After taking the image I cropped the photo and displayed it; a friend asked where I was in the reflection because there was “no way I could not be in the photo!”

Truly, I did not edit myself out of the photo. I am sure that crossed many minds who looked at the photo, but in this case I found the one place where I could blend into my background with my black jacket and black camera body. Being in the city at night shooting a reflective object can have its advantages.

It is interesting however, literally every thing else is reflected in the ornaments!

I also want to include this statement; I knew reflection of myself was “inevitable” so I did my best to compose the shot as best I could and deal with my reflection. I was blessed to have taken this placement for shooting and learned from my own “accidental genius”. *Grin*

Inspiration

Thomas A. Edison, who is hailed to be a genius, we all know to be a renowned inventor in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, once said “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”

So, do not be discouraged with a lacking of inspiration! I want to encourage you with a few insights into what a lot of people think are situations totally different from their own. That being said, I want to disclose we are human too, or at-least I am; so inspiration comes at the same rate and cost to me as everyone else.

Now I will tell you some things about myself in disclosure, however this is not “full disclosure” because quite frankly it is not necessary, nor is it going to aid this post. I do not apologize for anything about myself nor do I write this to offend anyone. I am inspired by a lot of things just as anyone else might be.

A specific time of inspiration is this; I sat in church singing from the hymn book. Yes I admit that I think about what I sing and sometimes during other events, like preaching. Sometimes these periods of thinking include inspiration, though being human they are “less often than not”.

“Waft it on the rolling tide: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Tell to sinners far and wide: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Sing, you islands of the sea; echo back, you ocean caves;
Earth shall keep her jubilee: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!”

“Okay, whatever. A bunch of stuff I hear at all churches. What is the inspiration” you ask?

“…Sing, you islands of the sea; echo back, ye ocean caves…” There is a lot more I can get into, but suffice it to say, the simple pictorial beauty in this written statement sets my mind to spinning.

I will let your mind spin and wander until Friday.