Reflections

It's always enjoyable to make photos of reflections. For one thing, many people who don't photograph never really see these types of details, and when people do take note of them it tends to be fleeting. It's only when such details are 'frozen' in time that they can be really appreciated. Most folks end up being amazed that a patch of water could really look as intensely colored as this.

There were several aspects of this particular image that made it enjoyable to capture:

First of all, to get these types of images one often has to bend and contort themselves in order to find the angle that best portrays the reflections. However, in this particular case, it was easy. The conditions were just perfect to get reflections in the water and I could just stand on the wooden deck overlooking Ohiopyle Falls with my 400mm f5.6 lens (long, but quite light) and pick out small patches of water that showed intense reflections from the trees. No bending over or twisting into painful positions at the water's edge.....nice!

Reflections I
Copyright Howard Grill

Second, usually one finds images like this made in the fall, when the autumn colors are reflected in the water. This was taken in the Spring. In fact, I took it just a few days ago. The bright green color is from the surrounding trees with their fresh 'flourescent' green leaves and the blue is simply color reflected from the bright blue sky. These are not 'Photoshop' colors.....they are real, though only present in small patches of the water. In fact, though I added a bit of contrast to bring out the detail in the water currents (to give it the same appearance as it had at the site), the color saturation was actually decreased because the real reflected colors were so intense that they looked 'unreal'.

Thirdly, I got to go photograph with my friend Linda, and, for me, it is always more fun to take pictures with someone who has the same passion for photographing than it is to go alone.