Brought to you by Olympus.
You may have read, or seen on my Instagram and Facebook that I went to New Zealand recently. It was a trip with the Olympus team, and a whole heap of talented photographers. I love traveling with photographers {no matter what their skill level} because there’s always something to learn, and no one ever minds stopping for the perfect shot.
On this trip we had a few learning sessions, and it was during one of them that my mind was truly blown. I am so excited to be sharing what I learned with you today too. On one of the morning sessions, we had a little chat with Lisa from The Wandering Lens. Not only is Lisa one of the sweetest people I’ve met online, she’s also insanely talented and incredibly humble too. Her underwater photography is a-mah-zing, but I also love the way she frames her photos using branches and leaves. Like this…
During her lesson with our group, Lisa shared a whole lot about framing, and other tricks… and then she talked about capturing reflections in photos. In my Photo A Day project we’ve played around with reflections before, but nothing like this technique has ever crossed my mind. Lisa uses puddles, pools, lakes and whatever water she can to create reflections… and then sometimes she also uses her phone. YES, HER PHONE.
The photo is taken using your camera. I played around using the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III, and the screen on your phone {make sure the screen is blank and off}.
How To Create Amazing Reflections In Your Photos Using Your Phone
It’s as easy as this:
- Hold your phone up {with the screen off} and hold your camera up to the phone.
- Using your camera, focus on the actual object {not the relfection} to get the shot. It works well with mountains, buildings, trees… play around!
- Use a low f-stop so that you have a bit of blur to make the photo work better.
- Move the phone and camera around to work on your angles. It takes a little playing around with to master.
- If you’re struggling with the phone, try an iPad… having a larger reflective surface definitely helps!
Don’t expect to master it on your very first shot {if you do though, gold medal to you!}, play around with the angles, the location and different camera settings. It’s a fun way to play around with. Here’s one of the shots that I got. I was happy for my first go!
I hope you love exploring this fun technique. I’ll leave you with some more photos from the group, so you can see how other people have snapped reflection shots.
I’d love to know how you go! Tag me {@fatmumslim} in your photos on Instagram so I can check them out. x
Thanks for sharing this gem Chantelle! I really do love the photography learning journey.
Mind. BLOWN. How awesome is that nifty trick? Thanks for sharing! x
Awesome!
This is so good! Great post and I am totally going to try this. Thank you for linking all their handles too xx
Such an amazing tip! Thank you!! Going to give it a go x (On a random side note, I grew up in NZ and my Nana used to paint similiar landscapes with the reflections. Your post has made me want to get back there and take photos of the places she painted using your clever trick xox)