The Art of Cool – 2

To begin with, it was just another picture to post on Facebook. I was trying to capture the idea of a cool, comfortable place on a hot day. Rather than give people glasses of water, the pub had prepared chilled bottles. The combination of the shade and greenness of the willow tree and the condensation on the bottle seemed to capture the essence of the moment.

After this initial shot, and as the condensation evaporated, I started to just mess about in the way that you can with digital photography  and seeing the possibilities of shooting through the bottle. This proved to be a bit of a challenge for the autofocus on my phone, but this, too, created possibilities This shot shows the people in the distance in a semi-abstract way.

Taken from a slightly different position – if you look carefully, the woman on the right appears twice – once in “real life” and again, as a reflected image, in the bottle.

By moving in closer, you get a more abstract offering – I particularly like the effect of the tree in the glass – almost as if the people are in an underwater forest.

A simple change of angle changes the composition dramatically. The subject is the bottle itself, rather than the scene behind it.

You can see these pictures in higher resolution by following this link