Over the last many years, I’ve gotten to know a lot about this building — first, driving by it for some years and calling it the “mirrors building”, then working inside of it for a few years.  Before today, I had never photographed it.  The mountains to the east of this building are an impressive landscape, but I’ve photographed those mountains before.  On this fine fall Saturday morning, for the first time, I saw the landscape and the building together, and created this image.

 

Usually, when we think about reflections in landscapes, we envision a reflection in a natural feature such as a pool of water.  Here, we have an example of an unnatural reflector.

 

 

Years ago, when I wrote (programmed) a ray tracer in a computer graphics class, I was amazed at the degree of realism achieved by having so many details of the surrounding scene reflected in rather simple objects.  In fact, this is one of the challenges of using buildings as mirrors — it is harder than normal to eliminate distractions (I had to crop a few out of this image).  There are other challenges, too:  First, the reflection will often be darker than the unreflected scene; adjusting the image histogram (boosting the darker values) can help with this.  Second, it is all too easy to get in your own picture (that becomes either a self-portrait or a distraction, depending on your looks and goals).  Third, the windows may not be perfectly flat (especially when there is a strong wind), thus creating some optical distortions in the reflections (this, too, can be either useful or distracting); generally, the closer you are to the windows, the more pronounced this distortion is.

 

Sometimes the windows are tinted, creating more of a monochrome reflection which can be quite interesting — especially in contrast to a normal-colored background.  In some cases, the windows wrap around a curve, creating a convex mirror which further distorts the reflected scene.  There are varieties of “imperfections” in these window-made mirrors that can represent good opportunities for experimentation.

 

The purist in me used to go to great lengths to avoid any signs of man in the landscapes I would capture.  Now I recognize that I can work with a man-made structure in a way that makes it an integral part of the final image.  Reflecting buildings are another tool in the photographer’s arsenal for seeing landscapes from different perspectives and adorning images with new elements of style.

 

Incidentally, this image was created using the still-picture capability of a small video camera.  Although this is not my still camera of choice, it was available and convenient — a good reminder that a less-than-ideal camera can be much better than no camera at all, and can be very adequate for capturing what we’re seeing.