I was drawn to this image by how confusing it was. It took me a moment to realize it was composed of several overlapping reflections, and I’m still not sure how many people there actually are. Complexity can be a powerful tool in visual art, forcing the viewer to examine every square inch of space closely to understand all the little details. However, it can backfire and have the opposite effect: overwhelming the viewer with so much complexity that they ignore the details of the image in an attempt to tune out the visual noise of an image. I think the complexity works out here because the array of reflections effectively combine multiple slightly different angles into one image, capturing the objects in greater depth.
Similar to the multiple reflections inĀ Chicago, I’m interested in how multiple shadows from the same object intersect and form umbras and penumbras. It would be interesting to try to capture this in an image, but I’m not sure how to go about doing that. Shadows are obviously dependent on the angle of lighting, so I would have to plan a shot based off the sun’s position in the sky and by extension the time of day. The photography websites mentioned using the rule of thirds to create point-counterpoint pairs, so perhaps I could make a point-counterpoint pair out of an object and its shadow.
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