The story of a photo 1

Every photo tells a story huh? But what about the story of the photo? The tale of how it came into being. Here’s the first of a new series.

This photo was created on a warm summer’s day. It is born of my photography practice and a desire to experiment.

On this day I went to one of my two local parks. Brynmill Park in Swansea, Wales was established in the Victorian age as a reservoir. I can remember a time when it still had local and exotic birds caged next to the reservoir. They are long gone, though the reservoir, turned lake, still attracts plenty of swans, canadian geese, cormorants, herons and a variety of ducks. Not to mention the voracious gulls of all types and the local band of pigeons.

In fact as I walked around the lake a tried a few multiple exposure experiments with the pigeons, but that wasn’t working today, and I wandered further on. In the furthest corner I came upon a large family of swans. I cannot recall seeing a brood quite as large. There were 7 nearly full grown cygnets and their parents all curled up for a nap, right by the edge of the lake.

I stood just a couple of metres from them and played with the foliage overhanging and reflecting in the lake. I had my camera set up in Additive mode (find out more here) and I was interested in the relationship between the dark leaves in silhouette, those in the sunshine and the reflection of each in the water.

I tried a few photos using differing framing, but although the effect was attractive the balance was not quite right. Then I had the bright idea of turning the camera upside down after the first frame. Echoing the reflections. And voila this photo was created.