My photo for today: A family reflects.

I really love this photo from the wedding day of Rebecca and Carl who got married at Gorcott Hall near Birmingham. This is just as Rebecca is about to step out of the car and I love the interplay of the reflection of Rebecca’s sisters who were the bridesmaids and then the transparency effect of seeing her mom beyond the glass. If you look closely at mom you can see the faces of her two daughters being reflected back. I particularly like the reflection of the daughter on moms hair as it doesn’t hit you straight away, in compositional terms this is called delay or a reveal, when some element of a photograph isn’t immediately obvious and only after studying it for a few seconds do you notice it, it causes the viewer to have a little “aha” moment when the reveal, reveals itself!

I’ve always loved capturing reflections in my photography and I’ve written a previous Musing about it here. That Musing was a little homage to the famous New York street photographer Saul Leiter. He was particularly well known (but not only) for his reflections, transparencies and complex mirroring techniques. I only became aware of him after he passed away in 2013 and I sort of made a vow to incorporate more reflections and transparencies in my wedding work.

The reason I enjoy getting these type of shots is that they are generally more interesting and engaging for the viewer than a more traditional photograph. If you can imagine this photo without the reflections you can probably tell it wouldn’t have half as much interest and engagement for the viewer as it does with the reflections. To me it just has so many layers and depth and this is accentuated by the double reflection of the bridesmaid who appears on the left and then again just under moms head. This second reflection is being reflected back from the open door so the face you are seeing is actually a reflection of a reflection, see what I mean about more engaging!