With our growing commitments and even busier schedules, it’s nice when we can take a moment to pause and reflect, and thanks to Los Angeles-based photographer, Cody William Smith, we’ve found we are able to do so. Specializing in landscape, fine art and something he calls environmental portraiture, he definitely has that magic touch. It is through his series, titled A Moment’s Reflection, which asks us to change our perspective, and notice something that maybe we haven’t seen before.
These beautifully rendered images are not your average
portraits of ocean horizon lines, sprawling deserts, or breathtaking
mountainous forms. The artist has cleverly placed a round mirror within the
image, completely altering the perspective as well as adding new ones, and in
turn completely altering the message and entrenched history of landscape
photography. This simple addition of not only a mirror, but also the pure form
of a circle, adds a second abstracted dimension to these images and prompts us
to ask a myriad of questions as to his intent. Why was the mirror placed here?
Is it a reflection of us as individuals or as a culture?
The artist had this to say of his series: “Reflections are
the primary physical means through which we perceive the world around us. You
and I are able to see only as a result of the diffuse reflections produced by
whatever person, place or object we observe. Light energy, from any source, is
partly absorbed and reflected by whatever it strikes. Photography is an art
form dependent upon the manipulation and capture of reflected and refracted
light through the use of lenses, filters, prisms, and sensors.”
