I Have a Thing for Reflection Photographs

I photograph a lot of reflections. If something can reflect something else, there is a pretty good chance I’m eventually going to point a camera at it.

PHOTO JOURNAL 2026

James Bradley

10/1/20267 min read

I Have a Thing for Reflection Photographs

I Have a Thing for Reflection Photographs

I’ve noticed something about my photography. Actually, Susan noticed it too, which probably means it has been obvious for quite a while and I’m just now catching up. I photograph a lot of reflections. A LOT.

Water, windows, puddles, lakes, marshes, irrigation canals, buildings, birds standing in shallow water, clouds doubled across a calm surface. If something can reflect something else, there is a pretty good chance I’m eventually going to point a camera at it. I’m not sure when this became a thing. I never sat down and decided, “You know what? I’m going to specialize in reflection photography.” That sounds way too organized for me. It just kept happening. The more pictures I take, the more I realize reflections are one of those things that naturally make me stop and look twice. Maybe that’s the entire reason I like them.

You Get Two for the Price of One

There is something satisfying about a good reflection because the photograph suddenly has two versions of the same scene. A mountain and another mountain. A bird and another bird. Clouds above and clouds below. A building standing upright and another one hanging upside down beneath it. Photography bargain shopping. Two subjects for the price of one.

Of course, the reflected version is rarely identical to the original. Water moves. Wind creates ripples. Light changes. The image stretches, bends, breaks apart, or sometimes becomes clearer than I expected. A perfectly still lake can create such a clean reflection that it becomes difficult to tell where the real scene ends and the reflected one begins. Then the wind moves across the water, and five seconds later the whole thing is gone. The mountain isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The reflection might disappear before I finish changing my settings. Ask me how I know.

Still Water Is My Friend

Some of my favorite reflection photographs have happened around water, which probably isn’t surprising considering how much time Susan and I spend around places like Market Lake. When the water gets calm, everything changes. A bird standing along the edge suddenly has a second bird underneath it. Clouds become part of the foreground. Reeds, trees, mountains, and sunset colors get duplicated across the surface. That can turn a fairly ordinary scene into something much more interesting.

The problem is that nature rarely consults my schedule. I can find perfect light and windy water. I can get perfectly still water and terrible light. I can have great light, calm water, and absolutely no wildlife anywhere in sight. Every once in a while, all of it cooperates at the same time. Those are the moments I’m starting to look for.

I used to see a heron and think, “There’s the bird.” Now I notice the bird, the water beneath it, the direction of the light, and whether the reflection helps the photograph or turns into a wobbly mess. The bird didn’t change. I did.

Well, Look at Me Getting Philosophical

This is the danger of writing about reflections. Sooner or later, you start sounding like you’re about to explain the deeper meaning of life through a puddle. I promise I’m trying not to do that. Most of the time, I just think reflections look cool. That’s enough.

But photography has changed the way I notice them. Before I started carrying a camera around so much, I’m sure I walked past thousands of reflections without giving them any thought. A window was a window. Water was water. A puddle was something I didn’t want to step in. Now a puddle might have a building sitting upside down inside it.

The annoying part is realizing all of this was already there. I just wasn’t paying enough attention to see it. Photography keeps doing that to me. It takes ordinary things that have been right in front of me for years and makes me wonder how I missed them.

Reflections Change the Composition

Reflections have also forced me to think differently about composition. If I’m photographing a landscape reflected in water, how much sky do I want? How much reflection? Should the shoreline run through the middle? Do I want symmetry, or is the reflected part actually more interesting than the original scene?

Those aren’t questions I asked when I started. My process was much simpler. Cool thing. Camera. Click. Photography!

Now I find myself moving around trying to figure out where everything fits. Symmetry is tempting. Put the horizon right through the middle, line everything up, and let the scene mirror itself. Sometimes that works beautifully. Sometimes it looks like I used a ruler. Maybe there’s a bird off to one side. Maybe the reflection deserves more room than the actual subject. Maybe I cut most of the sky out and photograph almost nothing but the water.

I’ve even taken pictures where I liked the reflected clouds better than the real ones. The water softened the shapes, changed the colors, or added enough distortion to make them more interesting. That feels slightly disrespectful to the original clouds. They’ll get over it.

Sometimes the Reflection Is the Photograph

When I first started noticing reflections, I treated them like a bonus. Photograph the bird. Nice, there’s a reflection too. Bonus. That has changed.

Now there are times when the reflection is what makes me raise the camera in the first place. The actual object might be completely ordinary, but the reflected version does something strange. Water breaks it apart, stretches the colors, or turns straight lines into shapes that don’t exist in the real scene. Sometimes I can nearly crop out the original object and leave the viewer trying to figure out what they’re looking at.

That pushes me toward more abstract photography, which is another area I never expected to enjoy. I generally like photographs where I can identify the subject. Bird. Mountain. Building. Flower. Simple. A distorted reflection gives me permission to let the picture get a little weird. I’m learning to like weird. Susan may argue that this is not a recent development.

Reflections Aren’t Just in Water

Water gets most of the attention, but once I started noticing reflections I began seeing them everywhere. Airports have huge expanses of glass that layer reflections over runways, airplanes, people, and lights. Hotel windows can do the same thing, especially early in the morning or late in the evening when the light inside and outside starts mixing together. Buildings with lots of glass are basically giant reflection machines.

Sometimes I’m trying to photograph the building itself and realize the more interesting photograph is what the building is reflecting. Clouds stretched across glass. Another building bent through a row of windows. Streetlights, people, and cars mixed into the scene.

It also ties directly into my interest in architecture. A building can be interesting because of its shape, lines, age, or design, but glass can completely change it depending on what is happening around it. Same building. Different sky. Completely different photograph.

Then there are mirrors. I haven’t gone too far down that rabbit hole yet. Give me time.

Wind Is the Enemy...Sometimes

If I want a clean reflection, wind is usually not my friend. It doesn’t take much. A small breeze can turn mirror-like water into a textured mess. Naturally, there have been plenty of times when I’ve arrived somewhere hoping for reflections and the wind decided otherwise.

Photography has taught me complete control over nature. I tell the wind to stop. It laughs. I cuss. Nothing changes.

The interesting part is that I’m starting to realize moving water isn’t necessarily a ruined opportunity. Ripples can make patterns, stretch colors, and bend straight lines into shapes that weren’t there a second earlier. The reflection doesn’t always need to be perfect.

That was another annoying lesson where something I originally considered a problem turned into another option. Photography keeps doing that. I need it to stop being educational for five minutes.

The Daily Challenge Made It Worse

The daily photo challenge has probably made this reflection habit worse. Or better. Depends who you ask.

When I need to find something to photograph every day, I look harder at ordinary places. Reflections give me another way to photograph something familiar without making exactly the same picture again. Market Lake can be Market Lake one day and look completely different the next. The water changes. The birds move. The clouds change. The light changes. The wind changes. Even if I stand in roughly the same place, I’m not necessarily looking at the same photograph.

For a while, I wondered if I was photographing the same things too often. How many pictures of water do I need? How many herons? How many sunsets? Quite a few, it turns out.

But I’m starting to understand that the point isn’t simply collecting different subjects. It’s learning to notice different conditions. The same place can give me a completely different photograph if I’m paying attention.

Reflections Make Me Slow Down

Wildlife photography can make me frantic. Bird! Camera up! Focus! Shoot! Where did it go?

Reflections are different. They make me slow down enough to look at the edges of the water, watch the wind, wait for ripples to settle, and pay attention to where everything appears in the frame. They also make me move. Left. Right. Lower. Higher. Closer. Farther away. Sometimes changing my position only a few feet completely changes what appears in the reflection.

I probably look like I’ve lost something. In a way, I have. I’m looking for the picture.

That may be one reason reflections keep showing up in my photography. They make me pay attention not only to the subject, but to everything surrounding it. The light. The water. The background. The wind. The angle. They make me look a little longer before I push the shutter.

I’m still not calling myself patient. Let’s not get ridiculous. Susan may request independent verification of that statement.

I Really Do Have a Thing for Them

When I look back through my photographs, reflections keep showing up. At home. At Market Lake. While traveling. In wildlife photographs, landscapes, architecture, windows, puddles, and anything else shiny enough to cooperate.

I never deliberately decided they were going to become part of my photography. The pattern showed up on its own. That may be one of the more interesting things about taking so many photographs during the daily challenge. I finally have enough pictures to start seeing patterns in what catches my attention.

Certain subjects keep pulling me back. Certain kinds of light make me stop. Certain scenes make me pick up the camera without really thinking about why. Reflections are clearly one of those things.

Maybe someday I’ll understand exactly what keeps drawing me to them. For now, the simple answer is probably enough.

I like the way they make me look twice. The first look shows me what’s there. The second shows me another version of it. Sometimes clear. Sometimes distorted. Sometimes more interesting than the original. That’s usually enough to make me reach for the camera.