As I play and experiment I enjoy sharing my discoveries with you, so I always take behind the scenes photos of my sets, but it’s also really helpful for me to have reference photos to refresh my memory when looking back. The best way to grow is to continuously try new things, but what good is going somewhere new if you can’t remember how you got there?

When I started this series of reflections, I had initially intended to stick with literal reflections… but when I started building the set I found too many awesome images that didn’t fit into that category. That’s when I decided that I had to open up the definition of “reflection” to include my musings about the art I was making. Since my writing has become just as much a part of the art, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.

The first four images came from the basic setup below. I moved the props and camera slightly for each variation. That’s my favorite part about macro photography, when you zero in on just one tiny piece of the world any slight movement can totally alter your perspective.

The following images all came from some angle variation of this set. All were created by looking through the water-filled glass at the ceramic cloud dish behind it. The lighting stayed the same for all of them. I bounced two flashes off the white ceiling (which you can’t see here =/) for soft, even lighting.

Read my reflections of each image with the link in the caption or click the image to find it in my shop.

Read my reflections in “A Cloud in My Kitchen” – This image is titled “Pastel Sky“

Read my reflections in “A Whale of a Choice” – This image is titled “Belly Full“

Read my reflections in “Picasso in New York” – This image is titled “Picasso in New York“

Read my reflections in “Body Image” – This image is titled “Waist-ed“

The next image came from a similar set, I just changed the prop from the cloud dish to a glass seahorse, and I added in a purple background.

This is how I found a Grumpy moon.

Read my reflections in “Grumpy Moon” – This image is titled “Grumpy Moon“

With the intention of actually photographing literal reflections, I was sidetracked yet again. Yes at this angle, shown below, I did see a reflection of the seahorse, but because the reflection didn’t run parallel to the plane of my lens, I couldn’t focus on the entire reflection.

That swirly blue thing is a handmade, glass, spoon rest I found on Etsy. I have two of them, one I actually use for spoons, but this one I use as a candle holder on my kitchen table. The simple fact is that it’s so beautiful, I ended up getting rid of the seahorse and just capturing my favorite part… no reflections included.

Read my reflections in “Just a Pretty Picture” – This image is titled “Spoon River“

Finally, I figured out how to position everything so that I could capture my ideal reflection. Instead of shooting down on the surface of the spoon rest, I propped it up vertically, and that made things infinitely easier.

Shooting straight down came with several problems, one being that my tripod doesn’t have much flexibility in a totally downward configuration, but the bigger problem was getting the seahorse into the reflection hot spot… and with my 1st attempt the figurine would have to either be hung up somehow or rest on a transparent surface to get in that spot… too much work!!

I’d been examining reflections for months before I decided I was obsessed enough to pursue them long-term, so I knew exactly how I wanted to light the seahorse. Backlit subjects always make the prettiest, and most popping, reflections. I didn’t want any harsh reflections from the lights, so I used a big diffuser to soften the two flashes and simulate one big light source.

Here are the reflection photos I made with the above set up:

Read my reflection of a reflection in “A Gift from Dad” – This image is titled “Spiny Reflection“

Read my reflection of a reflection in “A Whirlpool of Fear” – This image is titled “Drippy Whirlpool“

To make this last image I just took one of the above reflections totally out of focus… pretty bokeh.

Read my reflection of a reflection in “Never Bored” – This image is titled “Losing Focus in the Sea“

Of course, no behind the scenes post should be without my Moo, so here she is snoozing in the studio while I do all the work. Doggie snores are meditative, though, so it’s ok.

If you want to get more behind the scenes of the reflection series, check out part 2!