Abstract photography using reflections
A new look at nature
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| Blue clouds |
I am a keen photographer and I love capturing images of nature, ranging from sweeping landscapes down to macro images of lichens and insects. I recently discovered another way to look at these images through digital manipulation using reflections. As an exercise on creating intriguing and unusual looks I can fully endorse this process and it really is great fun. I'm quite addicted at the moment and have created a range of abstract backgrounds that I decided to sell on Creative Market so others can use them in their own projects. I'll add the link at the end if you want to take a look.
First of all I started to play with a sunset image. Here is the original:
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| Tuscan sunset, original image |
This was taken from my hotel window in Tuscany, it was an amazing sight with such vivid colours in the sky.
I used reflections of this to create these dramatic abstracts:
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| Top left quarter reflection |
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| Top half reflection |
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| Top right quarter reflection |
This got me thinking that these abstract images could look good as a background to a presentation or a heading for a website, or even as a greetings card!
I played with a number of images, some worked and some didn't, but the ones that did were a joy to create. This image was taken on a late afternoon in winter when the light was fading fast. I had been out playing with my nifty fifty Canon 50mm lens and took this shot of lichen on a gatepost with the setting sun dipping behind the lichen.
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| Original lichen image |
This is what resulted when I reflected it around the top left quarter:
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| Reflections of lichen |
I really like this effect. It is quite dark and moody and mysterious in a way don't you think?
I had some images of trees with birds flying in to roost taken at the same time as the lichen and some of the effects with these were quite magical.
Here is the original image
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| Original image of roosting birds |
and these are the reflections I made:
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| Reflected bottom left |
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| Reflected top right |
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| Reflected top half |
I think they are quite lovely, especially the middle one.
The software I used to create these reflections is called Polarr and is available for MacOS, Windows, iOS and Android.
The blue clouds image at the top of the post was the second one I created. This was based on quite an ordinary image of a winter sunset when the clouds were very blue but the sun was just setting. This is much better than the original iPhone photo!
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| Original iPhone image |
I will continue to have fun with this technique so you will probably see more of these abstracts on my Creative Market page here. I'd love to know what you think, whether this sort of abstract appeals to you or not, leave a comment below to let me know. Thanks.
https://creativemarket.com/liz.mitchell
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