I am a crow. I am attracted to shiny things. And I can’t resist photographing them. The reflections in mirrored things, frequently distorted, are particularly fascinating to me. I was therefore astounded when I came across Josiah McElheny’s sculpture Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. A glassblower, McElheny created a large mirrored box containing mercury glass vessels that reflect infinitely inside the box. Brilliant! And the essence of shiny! Inspired by his work, I went home and built my own mirrored box. Crowlike, I gathered bright, shiny, reflective objects to put inside the box and began to photographically explore the reflections and interactions created therein. The prints on exhibit here are some of the results of my exploration. I discovered, for example, that the mirrored box eliminates the reflection of the camera in the image—indeed, it eliminates the reflections of most things outside the box—without the use of Photoshop. I also discovered that less was more: The multiplicity of reflections in these images is created by just one or two objects. I find the pure, repeated reflections that result from the lack of extraneous color and shape to be intriguing. My crow self is delighted!

A word about the titles of some of the images. In doing my research for the box I delved into the physics of light where I found phrases that work well with the photos. My images are all about highly reflective surfaces and their repeated reflections so the title of this selection of photos, Coefficient of Reflection, a phrase that refers to the fraction of light that is reflected from a surface, seemed perfect, especially considering that a coefficient is a multiplier. These photos certainly have multiple reflections!  Evanescent waves and total internal reflections are connected in that evanescent waves are formed when sine (light) waves are internally reflected off an interface at an angle greater than the critical angle so that total internal reflection occurs, which is when the refractive index is lower on the other side of the boundary so that no light can pass through, effectively all of the light is reflected. This happens in the box as the light bounces off the multiple mirrors creating reflection after reflection. Evanescent means tending to vanish, which is appropriate in physics because the intensity of the waves decays exponentially with the distance from the interface at which they are formed. This is exactly what happens in the box as the repeated reflections seem to get smaller as they recede. 

The first six images were made into 20"x 30" C-Prints and put into the Berkshire Photography Group exhibition in the Gallery at Liebowitz at Simon's Rock College in Great Barrington MA. The opening was Saturday, August 23rd, and the exhibit was up until October 5th, 2008.

The first four images are now in the Arts Walk group show in Hudson, NY. The opening is Saturday, October 10th, 2009, at the Cannonball Factory on Columbia Street near 4th. The exhibit will be up until Sunday, October 18th, 2009. There are also four images in the windows of de Marchin at 620 Warren Street in Hudson as part of the Windows on Warren exhibit. They will be there from Saturday, October 3rd until Sunday, October 18th, 2009.

Click on each image to make it bigger.