Adam Moskowitz
Photography

Reflections

As a photographer who is so heavily influenced by painters, I am constantly trying to find ways to manipulate my images in a natural way, without the use of digital effects. I am enamored with all forms of reflective surfaces and enjoy immensely how they come to life in a photograph. A common reflective surface that I shoot is a puddle: These mirrors scattered brilliantly all over the ground, doomed to evaporate and yet they give such transitory, exquisite beauty. I enjoy the idea of evanescent beauty very much. Many of my water images owe their genesis in part to the influence of the impressionists and post-impressionists (Monet, Van Gough, Cézanne, Matisse); the way a gust of wind will distort the subject, for example. Goethe, in discussing The Laocoon, arrived at the conclusion that a work of visual (spatial) art can tell a temporal story, if the subject is portrayed in exactly the right moment of their actions, such as the downward swing of a pendulum. Many of the great expressionist painters accomplished great freedom in their brushwork, creating an exaggerated intension and heightening its emotional impact. To render this in a photograph one must look directly to nature and seek the elegant abstraction it has to offer.

Other reflections are comprised of various glass, metal, wood, plastics; All of these have varying distortion capabilities with endless possibilities. Glass is constantly changing because it is subject to deterioration. As it ages it can appear to be drooping or weather-beaten, yet another example of the temporary in reflections.