Photography, Through A Looking Glass

On a dinner cruise in  Paris  I wondered how I would take photos from my window. The Reflections had to be integrated with the view beyond.  Their confusion must add to the image, not detract. Windows offer layers of opportunity. Two separate scenes can combine into one. Our mind works this way. It looks for a single cause;  it hypothesizes thematic unity from of chaos.

Peering out a window has a long tradition in painting. The single subject with their back to the viewer looks out a window and stimulates a  mood of reflection or a sense of longing. Example 1  is a photograph  inside London’s Victoria and Albert museum. The interior space is dark and quiet, the exteriror is bright and beckoning.

example 1.

I recall the magical image that appeared as  I looked through the ground glass of my Rolleiflex  reflex camera and other large format reflex cameras. The soft light, the soft edges, the unity of tone, these qualities appeared to artists like Vermeer and Joshua Reynolds as they looked through their camera obscura machines. The 18th century landscape painter, Thomas Gainsborough, grew infatuated with reverse glass painting (example 2). The effect of backlighting his small landscapes heightened  their theatricality. Gainsborough used a large cabinet (box) with a viewing lens.  He mounted and backlit his reverse glass paintings inside this  box. Example 3 gives you a viewer’s experience of looking into this box.

example 2. Gainsborough Reverse-glass painting.

example 3. viewer’s experience of reverse glass illumination through a lens into the box.

While  Gainsborough was painting reverse glass works other artists were mounting glass in frameworks in the field. They superimposed a grid on these field-mounted windows and traced landscapes on them. The trick was to maintain a constant distance from their glass plate to keep all the components in proper proportion and location. Chin mounts and eye sighting rings were used to assist in this process.

Gainsborough must have noticed the curious image that resulted when he stacked two or more of his glass paintings. But, that was too aberrant an image for his time. Double exposures would have to wait another hundred years. Today’s  photo software makes double and triple exposures easy.  Example 4 demonstrates the effect of  looking through layers of windows in the entry of the Victoria and Albert museum. Note,  most of my photographs were taken with the new mirrorless Sony alpha 6000. It’s smaller than a digital SLR  and offers more portability but,  better quality and menu choices than most point and shoot models;  a good choice for travelers.

example 4. Through the glass with layered images.

Viewing through modern windows gives us new perspective possibilities especially when those windows are within tall buildings. Using my I pad  I snapped example 5 from my London hotel . The Repoussoir or coulisse (i.e. the left or right flank or wing shape which interally frames the image) appears as a scaffolded building on the right.  At this high  elevation there is a disconcerting invitation to step onto the planking within the scaffolding.

example 5.  Through the high floor hotel window.

Looking at mirrors or through windows gives artists an opportunity to unify disparate scenes. In 1976 Jerry Uelsmann took this photograph of a room through a window (example 6). The ceiling with its lack of visual information easily reflects the sky without  interfering visual noise. When I took my photo of  Jerry’s photograph I (and the gallery’s spot lights) reappeared  within the image.  I replicated this experience by taking photos through a glass window  in the garden of the Petit Palais in Paris.  The interior of the Petit Palais became comingled with the exterior’s reflected buildings.  The sky appeared in the ceiling area as it had in  Uelsmann’s work (examples 7 and 8).  Example 8 shows you the structure of the window as a part of the image.

example 6. Uelsmann’s dining room with sky reflection and the tertiary reflection of my silhouette.

example 7. Petit Palais with window-reflection photo.

example 8. Petit Palais 2nd through-glass photo.

Windows offer  a variety of distortion possibilities. While riding the Eurostar train from London to Paris  I turned my camera’s lens  to an oblique angle with the window (example 9.)  I noticed I could find similar distortions in angled glass within my photographs. Example 8 presents my initial photo of a sculpture silhouetted against a window. Notice the sculpture’s partial reflection in the glass of a painting on the far right. In Example 9 I cropped out the sculpture’s reflection and altered its colors and values.

example 9. elongated image out the train window (slightly anamorphic).

example 10. photo of sculpture before window.

example 11. image of reflected sculpture.

Arriving in Paris my first stop was the Musee D’Orsay. Windows on the 5th floor present views over Paris extending over the Seine from Sacre Coeur to the Louvre.  Using my I pad I snapped grainy images using the museum’s terrace sculptures to frame a portion of the Louvre.  I thought the grainy field of texture could appear atmospheric with software adjustments. See example 12.

example 12. View through a museum window.

Now, back to the dinner cruise I mentioned in my introduction. Here were opportunities to mix the reflected window information with the scenery of Paris along the Seine. The window’s reflections gave me visual events in the sky area. Without the reflective window glass  this area would have appeared as a void, flat and empty. As the cruise proceeded I mixed in more  of the effects from the reflecting glass.

Example 13 presents a passing tour boat. Its glaring lights make a  strong contrast against the night and send vibrating reflections across the water. Example 14 was a chance to create an alternative point of view on the iconic Eiffel Tower. And yes, there is a Carousel under the Eiffel Tower. Again the visual noise of reflections adds to the texture of the surface. Example 15 demonstrates a classic subject, the kiss or embrace. This subject is camouflaged within the ricocheting reflections and blurred motion of the image.   The visual camouflage let me  stir in more ambiguity and move further toward abstraction.

example 13. passing tour boat.

example 14 Eiffel Tower with reflections.

example 15. The  Seine’s Island Kiss.

Finally, the role of glass as a protector, distortionist and mediator is demonstrated with the Louvre’s Mona Lisa.  There she is buried behind thick protective glass, a physical barrier,  a crowd  and seen by most through the lens and software of digital cameras and cell phones ( example 16.)

example 16. The Mona Lisa behind Glass.