Reflections: Photographs by Will Tenney

For years I have been interested in abstraction and especially how an image can be altered by its reflection off water or even wet sand. Some of the images in this collection show the modulation of a reflective surface, constantly changing, affecting the reflected image.

I am fascinated by the art nouveau swirls, bends, and distortions of the image created by ripples, swells, or even wind on the surface of water. Wet beach sand, its reflective surface disappearing as waves recede, allows for interesting and fleeting reflections.

These reflections have several dimensions visible at the same time, not only the reflection of the “true” scene or object, but also surface objects, rocks and shells on the sand or beneath the water's surface. Inverting these images, turning the world on its head, returns the images to their upright geotropic orientation (earth at bottom – sky at top), yet the surface disturbances often make the image difficult to interpret.

It is this knowing yet unknowing, recognition yet confusion, almost dream-like quality which leads me to rationalize the irrational, to try to make sense of the chaotic, to understand the enigma that I am seeing. By carefully cropping these images, I isolate them from their “real” counterparts, and it is this decontextualization which allows me to appreciate their almost non-photographic abstraction.

Many of my reflection images are available in book form, Surface + Illusion. Further information on this and other books may be found at this link.

Charles at Watertown (detail)