I almost walked away from taking this photo: my intent was to photograph the interior of a small restored house from the vantage of it's front yard through a window. After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally noticed that the reflections had their own intrigue.
[This photograph was taken in October 2014 for an NVCC photography course for which the following description was written and is here modified for the OPC.]
Grandmother’s House
What “situation” have we here? A room in an old house, a window suspended in space, a treed lawn inside the room? Being reminiscent of Twilight Zone themes, perhaps Rod Serling can straighten out this situation.
Photograph was taken at the Blenheim House, a refurbished Civil War-era house and museum in Fairfax City. The subject is “Grandmother’s House” on the Blenheim grounds, and it has both technical interest and artistic value, though I feel its interest is related primarily to the technical aspect. The photograph was taken from outside the house with the left side of the camera’s hooded lens touching a pane of the house's right front window. The camera is focused upon boxes that can be seen in a back room through a door. The resulting image contains five sub-images at different distances, one of which is out of focus despite the f/11 aperture:
1. The wall of the room with door through which is the back room. 2. The adjacent side wall with only the side window visible, not the wall itself. 3. The side window’s outside view. 4. The reflection in the front window of a) a gravel path, b) a lawn, and c) a treed area, including a well-house a good 200 feet behind the camera. 5. The lens hood and the dirt spots on the front window, both of which are out of focus.
Using a reflection from a window glass, which I suspect this is, was a creative idea. For me, the right hand half adds very little. I think the picture would be stronger with just the right had part. The window floating in the scene adds a "what in the world is going on?" theme that's rather interesting.--TFH
