Pursuing my two favorite motifs, water and the anatomy of movement, I started making composites, extracting from one image and pasting onto another.

shadow.jpg

Showing the first version of this composite to a mentor, he questioned me about shadows.

Now, shadows are something that I had a blind spot for. In contrast, I have always been partial to reflections. At one time, I bought beaten up mirrors that I put into many corner of the house. I then photographed my small children, reflecting back and forth across the rooms and up the staircase. A few years later, I enjoyed the reflections in Richard Estes’ photorealism – objects reflecting in windows, mirrors, and shiny rims of steel stools in lunchonettes.

Inspecting the original picture with the boy, I realized that it needed to be rotated horizontally in my montage so that the shadows (copied now as well) point in the right direction. But there still is problem. The shadows extending from the feet are too short because in the original picture, the feet were standing on a pier. In my picture, the water is pretty close to the surface of the sand and therefore, I have to learn to paint extensions of the existing shadows.

shadow2.jpg

To learn about shadows, I am now busy snapping them.

reflections.jpg

Experimenting with different properties of water – reflection and transparency – and adding shadow (the photographer). Tomorrow, I promised myself to remember bringing my polaroid filter.

I am puzzled why I liked reflections but rejected shadows.

Do prefer one over the other or are they equally interesting to you?