By André Costantini
In the middle of last month I was out and about in Chicago. In the nice, but hot August heat we took in the sights of Millennium Park. Aside from the Gehery designed bandshell and the big bean, one of the other highlights is the Crown Fountain. Designed by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, the fountain has an interactive video with faces of Chicago people that periodically change built into two 50 foot high glass block towers. And there is of course water and a reflective pool that you are welcome to walk through. Needless to say, it makes a pretty amazing backdrop for any photographer. After a quick glance it became clear that the time to come back was definitely at night to take advantage of the backlit towers and the way the light would react with the water and the people.
Upon arrival there were kids of all ethnicities and ages running around, enjoying the water and the faces. I had just gotten my new Tamron SP 70-300 f4-5.6 VC USD lens and gave it a go to catch some of the interaction. After about 30 minutes and 50 or so frames, I managed to get one that I was really into. This image was taken at 120mm at f5.6 at a 1/60 with the Vibration Compensation feature turned on. What you are seeing is all reflection (and so the image is essentially rotated 180 degrees.) The silhouettes of the figures are watching the video or running around. There is a character just about to enter the frame on the left and the smile of the woman in the video dominates the frame. The ripples or points of sharpness are all dependent on how still the water was in the frame. Aside from adjusting color and a slight crop there is no major manipulation of the image. It can be a fun challenge to be able to find the surreal or obscure in the real world. The result is an interesting relationship between the relative scale of the reflections to the larger then life video image.
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