Weekly Photo Challenge: Refraction

When I see the word refraction, I can’t help but associate it with the word reflection, even though I know they are two different things.  The refraction images I made for this week’s photo challenge could really fall under either description.  This particular window, is lovely in the morning with the first light that it lets in, but in this case I was looking to showcase the trees that can be seen through it:

ISO 400 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/80

I find the distorted view to be quite interesting.  However, in the original of this photo, the houses and trees visible through the side panes were pretty in focus.  So, when I edited this version in Photoshop, I used the Iris blur filter and adjusted it so that just the middle pane of glass was in focus.  Here is what the original looked like:

ISO 400 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/80

I liked the dreamy feel that the Iris Blur filter brought to the photo.

When I was shooting this series of images, I pulled out all my cameras and tried a variety of settings.  This one bellow was my favorite straight out of the camera:

ISO 500 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/60

I used my point and shoot to get this particular image and it has a toy camera setting, which is what I used here.  While the distortion of the trees is still visible, this particular setting also brought out the detail of the glass etching, which I ended up really liking.

It was interesting to me that my top two images from this particular photography session ended up being from my point and shoot camera.  My DSLR and iPhone both created acceptable but not great images.

This week’s challenge was particularly fun because it took me down some unexpected paths, and those can be some of the most interesting moments in photography don’t you think?

Cheers!