Reflections on a reflection

I am discovering how tricky reflections are, as I reflect on the complexities of photographing a reflection.

I have decided to use a reflection of a tree in a small stream as the inspiration for my felt panel.

I came across this reflection on a cold but bright April morning, and was entranced. I snapped away , but with my limited photography skills and equipment I could not capture both the image and its reflection in the same photograph. This was easily achieved by some kind of vertical panoramic melding technique by the photographer .

Reflecting on these images the next day , I decided I needed to return to take some close ups if I was going to develop this as a felt idea. Good idea , but now on reflection not nearly enough.

What has become apparent to me is that a tree reflection in water critically depends on where you stand when you look at it , or actually when you in this case take a photograph . Although I think I knew this in my head , I did not behave systematically enough , during my entrancement and now have lots of fantastic photographs , that don't line up .

This is all made a bit more complicated by the fact that the numbers of branches in the tree is more than in its reflection. Analysing this it is , I believe it is a combination of the narrowness of the stream, the width of the tree and the viewing angle. All this has slowly become apparent to me as I try to sketch and paint the image. How have a managed to make it so complicated before I have even thought about how to felt the image.

To illustrate my point here is the reflection and the tree separately at slightly different angles.

And finally a pastel interpretation if the whole piece

Now to convert all these wild ideas to a felted panel from European wool!

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