(mir)ror im(age)

 

I was thinking that I really liked this image I made of a sunset from last January…

 

January sunset & branches

 

I wondered what it might look like if I flipped it horizontally…

 

January sunset & branches, flipped

 

I decided I didn’t like that as much. But, then I thought… Maybe you need both! So, I decided to see what they would look like side-by-side…

 

January sunset & branches, side-by-side

 

Actually, what resulted was sort of a happy accident. I had intended on putting the two images together in a manner similar to the image I shared here with a thin black border between. I happened to place them too close together and (fortunately!) I saw this marvelous pattern and shape appear. I love when you can do something in a graphics program with your photo that manages to retain its essential nature but also adds a new dimension or element. In this case, it was already so fantastical and surreal that I thought I would go just one step further and turn the image upside down…

 

January sunset & branches, upside down

 

Now, I had originally planned at this point to tell you how excited and impressed I was by the figure that appeared to me when I stared at this last image… But then I thought it might be more fun (à la the interactive-cloud-gazing post) if I asked y’all:  What do you see?

*grin*

[P.S. When I was trying to come up with an interesting name for this approach (technique?) (style?), a few of the words that I was playing around with were “mirage” and “mirror image” as both terms seemed apropos. It dawned on me that the first word was contained within the letters of the second. I thought that was nifty! Though, perhaps there’s no great surprise in this as apparently the words “mirror” and “mirage” share the same Latin root — mirare, meaning “to look at, to wonder at”.]

Harsi / July 29, 2011 / fun stuff, photography, skies

Comments

  1. Ruth - July 30, 2011 @ 4:10 pm

    Well, I see a wise old dude with an amazing mustache and cool hair. I’ve done some photo flipping before, but never tried putting the mirror images together. A fun new thing to keep me out of the billiard parlors.

    Reply
  2. Harsi - July 30, 2011 @ 10:22 pm

    Good evening, Ruth! Sorry for posting your comment so late… (See my current blog post for a bit of an explanation.) Thank you, thank you, for playing along with me. I just knew you would see something wonderful! I’ll wait until Monday to see if anyone else feels like joining in and then I’ll reveal what I saw… (It was surprisingly close to your response!) “keep me out of the billiard parlors”… ha Ha HA! Well, I am glad that you seem to delight (as I do) in these little photo experiments of mine. As always, I simply insist that you send me copies of your creative efforts with this new one!

    Reply
  3. Chris - July 30, 2011 @ 10:27 pm

    A wise old man eh? What I see is (and maybe I am slightly biased since I am surrounded by them at the moment) a cat’s head, and the orange hue of the sky and the horizontal stratifications formed by the clouds make it look specifically like a tiger. Interested to know what you see, Harsi, and what anybody else sees. I suppose I will find out next week!

    Reply
  4. Harsi - July 31, 2011 @ 12:51 am

    ~ Chris ~ Oh, I can totally see where you’d get tiger… or maybe lion. Very cool! Thanks for joining in before you head off on your adventure. You know I’m wishing you all kinds of incredible plant/critter discoveries and may the “photography gods” smile on you as well. *grin*

    Reply
  5. Harsi - August 1, 2011 @ 11:43 pm

    WHOOPS! I almost forgot to stop back and share what I saw in the flipped image… Bear in mind that we re-watched “The Lord of the Rings” recently… but (depending on how I squint) I either see a bearded wizard with long hair or an ancient Ent coming to life. *GRIN* Thanks again for playing along you guys!!

    Reply

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