Ripples in the water

A few years ago this blog would most likely have been covered in photos of watery reflections. I've moved on a bit since then but every now and then I like to revisit that particular obsession of mine.

I found myself chilling out in a park in Cardiff recently and after finding a particularly lovely river I decided to take some pictures of the reflections on it

What I like about going back to old subjects and seeing how my style has evolved and changed. Where once I would have obsessed over creating a perfectly clear reflection I now found myself drawn to how the ripples on water distorted and added to the reflections found on the river.

By doing this I felt like I was able to take an older more familiar subject like reflection work and put new wrinkles on it. Like ripples on the water time has changed the way I work with this subject and that can only be a good thing.

Reflections on water

"And what you love-but turn away-you lose.
You see a phantom of a mirrored shape;
Nothing itself; with you it came and stays;
With you too it will go...if you can go?" - Ovid Metamorphoses

I've always been drawn to water; its beauty, its mercurial nature and most of all its ability to reflect and perhaps question the fragile nature of our reality. It was therefore always going to be a subject that I would spend endless hours photographing.

Its elusive as well, sometimes what you see as the perfect reflection disappoints you or slips into the mundane when caught on camera. Your shots of the splashes and sprays that were so dramatic at the time, become tame or (worst of all) boring when pouring over them on your computer. Its a tricky siren, but one that calls you back again and again, just hoping to catch the enchantment and magic that drew you to it in the first place.

The world it serves up are for me tantalising mirrors of what could be. A world free from reality, gravity, sanity and perspective. And then you turn and walk away from it and you realise that with you gazing upon its reflections it came and with you walking away from it it will too go, if you can go?