Chasing Reflections by Eli Reinholdtsen

The team at Craft & Vision has released a new eBook and this one I’ve really been looking forward to with great anticipation!

I have reviewed some of the previous releases from Craft & Vision over the past couple of months in these posts:

• Ten Ways to Improve Your Craft. None of Them Involve Buying Gear
• Vision Is Better. Free the Mind, Free the Camera.
• The Magic of Black and White
• VENICE

The Craft & Vision eBooks are fantastic because they represent such awesome value at just $5 each for beautifully designed eBooks. And if you buy around the release dates of new books you can usually pick up a 20% discount making them just $4 each (you can hardly buy a large latte for that kind of money!)

The new photography eBook released today is the third in the series ‘The Print & The Process’ and is titled Chasing Reflections by Eli Reinholdtsen.

Eli Reinholdtsen is a creative photographer who, through her unique and skillful approach to reflections, captures moments and juxtapositions that are truly an art form at its finest.

Reinholdtsen digs deep and shares tangible ways to scout, setup, and shoot complex and magical photographs that push the envelope of visual poetry. Her playful descriptions aren’t shy of digging deep into the techniques required to capture movement, timing and contrast.

Quiet frankly this book is almost worth its price just for the cover shot!

It’s an amazing photograph. It’s the type of image you can come back to again and again and it sets the tone for the rest of the book.

As the title indicates this book is all about reflections. I must admit I personally have a soft spot for reflection images. Therefore I’ve also looked forward to this release and I wasn’t disappointed.

The book is divided into the following sections:

• Introduction (The Premise)
• Photographs – 37 pages with one reflection image per page (The Print)
• Subjects, technique and tips (The Process)
• Thumbnails of each of image including technical settings and a brief of discussion of how each image was created.

Overall the 37 reflection photographs included in this book are dazzling and above all very inspiring. As with any large body of work though, you’re likely to like some of the images better than others, particularly because Reinholdtsen spoils us with such a varied selection of images.

Personally I think the selection of images could have been edited just a tiny bit tighter with two or three images letting the rest of the group down a little bit. When that’s said though I still find the overwhelming majority of the images incredibly inspiring and very well executed. As you’ll learn if you buy the book, some of these images have taken hours if not days to plan requiring a good amount of patience.

“I can walk around town for days on end with my camera. If I find a good backdrop with great light I can easily wait for an hour or so for the ‘right’ person to pass by and complete the image” Reinholdtsen writes.

In ‘The Process’ section of the book Reinholdtsen discusses her creative process and generously shares tips and techniques on how you can create powerful reflection images including topics like:

• Combining images
• Good light for reflection images (this one might surprise you)
• Mannequins and posters
• Layering technique
• Depth of field
• Angle of shooting
• Focus issues

You’ll also learn how the human form is a very powerful element in reflection images. For someone who tends to often leave the human form out of my images, this was an important lesson in itself. I find myself drawn to many of the images in this book where there is a strong presence of the human form.

I find this book to be an excellent – and very inspiring – resource on reflection images specifically. It’s a book I know I’ll return to again and again for inspiration.

You’ll notice that many of the images in Chasing Reflections are images where Reinholdtsen takes you on a small visual journey. The layered information contained in many of the images means that you can spend quite a bit of time with each image and discover new details or connections each time you return to an image. This is what is particularly wonderful about so many of Reinholdtsen’s images in this eBook.

At just $5 there really isn’t too much else to say than buy it. You won’t be disappointed!

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