Native Palette
A mirror set on a dam bank, framing the rustic reflection like a work on canvas.
A mirror set on a dam bank, framing the rustic reflection like a work on canvas.
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Apr, 2016Views
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Awards
Action Award
Zenith Award
Top Shot Award 22
Legendary Award
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Outstanding Creativity
Superb Composition
Top Choice
Absolute Masterpiece
Peer Award
Genius
Magnificent Capture
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Behind The Lens
Location
I shot Native Palette in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia, at a local landmark called the Twin Dams.Time
I started shooting around 11am, and felt I'd gotten a decent capture around an hour later. The shooting time was incidental to the fact that it was a Saturday, and that I had some free time from 11am onwards. I'd been planning the shoot for a few weeks.Lighting
Initially, I wanted to try the setup at sunrise or toward sunset, thinking that the softer morning light or evening shadows would feature as an element in the shot. Time constraints meant I had to shoot around midday. It turned out to be a good time for the light. The dams are fringed with 20 and 30 metre high gum trees, throwing a lot of shade onto the water. At midday, their shadows fell directly beneath their branches. This allowed an uncluttered reflection of the sky and trees to become a feature in the dam water, and the water itself was in good relief. On my sixth set-up, I lucked out that a patch of light fell onto the ground/leaves right in front of the mirror.Equipment
Native Palette is shot, hand held, on a Lumix FZ35. I had a tripod with me, but was unable to use it because of the steepness of the dam bank. I'd picked up the 2.5 foot x 1.5 foot mirror plate from a second hand shop a few weeks earlier, and had a small artist's easel to sit the mirror on. As the apex of the easel intruded into the shot, I ended up supporting the mirror in the soft ground with two sticks. When I say soft, the weight of the mirror pushed the sticks over after about a minute, and I started sliding down the dirt bank each time I leaned down to shoot. In 36 degree Celsius heat, I set up in six different places, managing around 15 shots in total. I had a feeling during the last set-up that one of the shots may have worked. It was this one.Inspiration
I was reading a magazine article about an American photographer. It was accompanied by a mirror-as-a-canvas shot he'd taken in the Arizona desert. The mirror he used was around five foot x four foot, and if I remember correctly, the reflection he chose was a few large cacti, some rocks, and it transitioned back to the horizon. On first view, I thought I was looking at a painting of the desert, with the real desert as a background. Then I realised that the shot has you viewing two aspects. One is the desert to horizon, a background for the mirror/ canvas which itself contains a picture reflecting to the opposite horizon.Editing
Adjusted shadows, highlights, curves and some detail in Photoshop Elements.In my camera bag
Two cameras - a trusty Lumix FZ35 and new travel toy, a Fujifilm Finepix X100t - spare batteries, soft lens cloth and a blower brush, a spare couple of high speed SD cards. I keep a tripod in the car, but mainly do on-the-move street shooting now I have the X100t. The fixed lens X100t has a digital neutral density filter, but beyond that, the camera requires that you get up close and personal. It makes you really think about your shot composition. It's not a big camera and part of its value is that it's not very intrusive on the street. The FZ35 was the first stills camera with the ability to zoom while shooting HD video. I keep it on hand for that.Feedback
Mirror-as-a-canvas works exceptionally well for outdoor landscape compositions. Within that, its use is only limited by your imagination (have a play with the technique in your back yard/ garden, at different times of day). Plastic mirrors are usable, but glass mirrors give better quality reflection. An art easel effects the look of the mirror being a canvas in your shot, and allows you to easily change mirror height and angles. A big mirror gives more scope in composition. Effective shots are easier to obtain. Even with planning, setup can take a while until you really begin to see what your shot is about. For that reason, work on simple, flat terrain to start with. I learned the hard way, shooting from a steep bank in terribly hot weather, unable to use my tripod, and having to find shooting angles to make a smallish mirror give the size of reflection that the shot needed. And to ensure that you're getting a crisp focus into the mirror, make sure there's no light reflections coming off the mirror into the lens. Get a good focus on your mirror first. Then, find where you need to position the camera to apply that focus, suiting how you want your background focus to look.
