Photographing Reflections: Beyond the Mirror

Creek descending through a granite basin, Yosemite NP. The sun was hitting the rocks just beyond the top of the frame, reflecting the gold color into the water, and even onto some of the polished rocks on the right.

Pools in glacially polished granite, Yosemite NP. Late-day sunlight hitting the ridge above reflected gold colors into these pools of water. When adjusting the white balance, I left a hint of blue in the rocks to create a warm-cool color contrast.

That gold color again, reflected into the Tuolumne River from sunlit rocks above. I used a relatively fast shutter speed – 1/60th sec. – to freeze the water’s motion and preserve the texture. I also needed a small aperture (f/22) to keep everything in focus. Getting both a fast shutter speed and small aperture required pushing the ISO up to 1600.

Reflections at the base of a small waterfall along the Tuolumne River. This shutter speed was a compromise: I wanted to freeze the ripples in the foreground, but blur the waterfall behind, so I settled on ⅛ of a second to get some blur while still preserving most of the texture in the ripples.

I loved the abstract patterns created by clouds reflected in the rippled surface of this alpine lake. Again I used a fast shutter speed (1/125 sec.) and small aperture (f/22) to freeze the motion and get sufficient depth of field, which required pushing the ISO to 400. The ripples were moving quickly, so I made a series of exposures with the same settings to try and capture the most interesting design.

Sunset reflections in an alpine lake. The lake wasn’t perfectly still, but close enough to create a classic mirror reflection. In these situations shutter speed doesn’t matter much; here it was 1.5 seconds.