Creative tip 16: reflection and layering | London Creative Photographer

It seems such a long time ago when I first blogged about my eldest daughter’s ballet class on here. We eventually had to abandon ballet as getting there was proving to be more and more difficult each week. We were all gutted to stop it. But now, a new ballet class has started a stone’s throw away from our house {clearly a gap in the market for a long long time} so we are all very excited. Now I have 2 girls at ballet and they love every minute of it.

This first blogpost on my girls’ ballet class is not so much about them as it is about using 2 techniques in creative photography: reflections and layering.

Incorporating reflections in photography can turn an otherwise straightforward photograph into something creative, different, artistic and even abstract. There are many sources of reflections such as mirrors and a shiny floor surface {both used on here}, water, glass, and windows.

Layering is when you use foreground, middle ground and background elements as part of the image, often focusing on the middle or background rather than the foreground. This adds more depth to the composition and a three dimensional feel to the image as shown in the photo above compared to the lack of foreground in the photo below.

Layering is one of my favourite techniques which I always strive to use especially in weddings. I love the feel it gives to the images…that “I just happened to be there at the right moment without anyone noticing and captured the scene” feeling…that sense of “looking through”. Whilst it is a very simple technique, I find it quite hard to master until it becomes second-nature to me. I try to always be on the lookout for foreground or even create one, and sometimes it’s very tricky to make it happen.

I hope you found this little creative tip useful. If you get a chance to experiment with reflections and layering, do share your images – I would love to see them. If you missed the previous creative tips, click this link and follow the trail to all of them. Below is one of my favourite images from this set. I always struggle deciding between colour and black and white {the first photo on this blogpost} on some images. Which one do you prefer?

To see my posts on the Creative tips series, click here