"Upon Reflection...." — TimothyBentley.Photography

If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it, asks the philosopher, will it make a sound? The answer of course is that it will create vibrations in the air, but only creatures with ears will perceive those vibrations as a sound.

But we might also ask, does a reflection in a forest exist if there is no one to see it? Must someone be present for it to exist?

Deep in the woods of Gatineau, most days no one sees this reflection of trees and sky in a pond.

If a reflection requires the eye of a beholder, this one doesn’t actually exist, most of the time

It’s tricky. If a person ignores a reflection, just keeps moving on, the reflection ceases to be.

And if a person shifts their position, the image reflected will change, in ways that are unpredictable.

So while a reflection may be partly an external reality, more interestingly, it’s partly you.

Driving along the Thousand Islands Parkway on a summer’s day, out of the corner of my eye I spotted these symmetrical structures on a dock, accompanied by its symmetrical reflection. I thought it was strikingly beautiful, and immediately pulled off the road.

But in the time it took to stop the car, the image had disappeared. All I could see was a cottage and some trees.

Only when I walked back on foot did I rediscover the reflection. From a philosophical perspective, the reflection not only defined my location, but also confirmed the existence of my self.

(You’ll notice that I’ve rendered this scene in black and white. I discovered during editing that its colours, even though muted, can distract the eye from the pleasing symmetry of the image.)

Here’s another day, on the shore of Georgian Bay just after sunup. Because of the fog and the shadows, this image was inherently monochromatic.

The reflection of sun, trees, and dock express a serene moment that occurred before most people had left their beds. Therefore, for most people, it never happened.

And that’s how intensely personal reflections are.

Walking in the University of Toronto recently, I discovered an unusual reflective ceiling outdoors, beneath a building in the faculty of law. From there I could see the modest architecture of Wycliffe College, across Hoskin Avenue.

Because I lived and studied at Wycliffe many years ago, the scene intrigued me. Reflection is not only in the eye of the beholder, but also influenced by his story.

But what I found most fascinating was that above my eyeline, this strange ceiling reflected grasses, pedestrians, and my former residence, all in a wavy surreal manner.

Below the eyeline too, much is happening. Rain and melting snow create a vast resource of reflections in the city, mostly ignored and certainly transient.

After a storm, hundreds of pedestrians walked around and through the puddle below, never stopping to notice its remarkable quality.

Yet here is art, free of admission cost, in a public space.

There are hundreds of particles of colour in the paving stones decorating this portrait of a single tree. They remind me of the pointillism popularized by painters like Georges Seurat in the 1880s.

(Wikipedia reminds people like me, who are obsessed with making high quality photographic prints, that pointillism is analogous to the four-color printing process that places dots of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black on the surface of our papers. End of digression.)

But if you’re open to impressionism, have a look at the tree below, its reflection distorted by tiny waves caused by the impact of drops of rain. To some this image might suggest mystery or threat.

Mini waves created a pleasing reflection

To others I suppose it’s just a tree upside down.

This glowing image of Central Technical School on Harbord Street was created for a brief moment by melting snow accompanied by the glow of the setting sun.

As I watched, the sun dipped abruptly below the horizon. At once the reflection became dull and lost its magic. So I walked on, and the reflection simply ceased to exist.

Sometimes it’s the sky we see, captured in a puddle. Here, a blue reflection is punctuated by fluffy white clouds, framed by paving bricks, touched by floating autumn leaves.

One of skills human beings uniquely possess is the ability to look back on events in our lives, and reflect.

Low clouds reflect in the St. Lawrence River

But it’s interesting that reflections – in a physical sense – have a relationship with the way we reflect on our lives, considering the things that were said or done.

Sometimes we narrow our memory, to make sense of a particular moment.

There’s a metaphor here, as the golden sun sets over the St. Lawrence River, its reflection a thin streak of light cutting across the water toward the camera.

Other times, we may reflect more broadly about an event, reconsidering everything that happened. The image below presents a broader metaphor.

Yellow sunset and red clouds reflected in a bay

Much of the sky is reflected in this quiet bay, and near shore a boat is tied up to a buoy, perhaps for the last swim of the day.

While the casual observer might simply glance at the light orange of the horizon, the sky overhead has turned an intense, brilliant red. In this mirrored image, only the reflection, emphasized by the darkening water, tells the whole tale.

Back in the city, we see the sun reflected in the windows of tall buildings just before it sinks below the horizon. A gull swoops down, as if seeking the light.

Inland, in our urban neighbourhood, there’s a constant stream of passersby, day or night. It’s customary for people to place items they no longer need at the street, to be picked up by someone who can use them.

Books, beds, clothing, kitchen tools – you’ll see them all, any day.

And mirrors.

Which is a problem. A mirror is an attractive target for someone who’s drunk, or high, or simply anti-social. In their current state, the last thing they want is to see themselves reflected. So what a delight to smash it.

This circular mirror attracted such negative attention before it could reach a good home. And then it rained. But while those circumstances ultimately doomed it to the trash bin, it became this photographer’s delight.

Here, the shards reflect irregularly, making it a glorious abstraction, the image punctuated by raindrops. If you’re looking at it more literally, you may see it as a helmet, or a skull.

Recently, another mirror caught my eye. Leaning on a tree across the street, it was waiting for an appreciative future owner to walk by.

Mirror reflects sky, architecture, and a photographer

I took several photographs, and depending where I stood, the mirror reflected varied combinations of blue sky, pretty puffy clouds, and the architectural details of this Victorian neighbourhood.

It reminded me that when you photograph a reflection, you reveal not just the image but also your perspective on it, in both a physical and mental sense.

And without thinking about it, you are also documenting something else that’s important: that you exist.

After I took several photographs from various angles, I noticed that I had accidentally positioned myself in the reflection. I’ve included that here as a final image, to reinforce my mantra that reflection is always in the eye of the beholder.

Footnote: Next time I checked, the mirror was gone, picked up by an appreciative local before a hooligan could destroy it.

Meanwhile, only a few passersby had the opportunity to notice it, or the reflection. The only reason you’re looking at it today is that a photographer grasped the opportunity to capture this fleeting moment in time.

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