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Bath Time Reflection

by DougPaz

I decided right away in the "Reflection" Challenge that I was going to try and stay away from water as I figured that would be very popular in the challenge. Early on, I talked my way into a Police Station and took a shot of Razor Wire reflected in the window of a Police Truck. I wasn't happy with it when I got home. I also kept noticing an insurance agency with an Auto in it and wondered if I could reflect some cars in the window as well. I stopped one morning and took a bunch of shots but once again I was frustrated with my efforts. It rained from Hurricane Lilly most of the week so finally I decided to try and take a rain shot. I took my son out and shot this pic but the reflection was weak at best.
On Sunday Morning, I noticed how shiny the faucet was in out bathroom tub. I polished it up and started taking some shots of my wife leaning over it. The results of one of those shots is below. The next shot shows how the picture was set up. I was on the left with the camera. I was actually sitting in the tub. I had reflective lights with 100w bulbs on both sides of me pointing at her to get the reflection. I then shot into the faucet. When my wife saw the shots, she thought it looked "cheesy" to have someone clothed looking into a faucet. I had to agree. The distortion was also pretty rough.
Back to the drawing board, we decided that she would wear a towel and appear to be drawing her bath. Try as I might, I couldn't get enough of her in the faucet because of the distortion. As we kept shooting, the towel came off and she got closer to the faucet and I started holding a 200 watt light almost right at her while I shot. This caused the glare that you see in the faucet but made the reflection much more clear. The result was the next shot which was my original for the submission. I considered either trying to run water from the faucet or filling the tub with bubbles as a background but was a little nervous holding a camera and an electric light over the water that I had my feet and legs in. Call me chicken!! We tried shots with and without her smiling and I liked the "reflective" feel of this one best.
I flipped the shot and rotated the angle 1 degree to get the tile line at the bottom straight before I cropped it. I would have liked to take the tile out completely but I would have cut off part of the hot and cold water handles. I played with the color and saturation a little and sharpened it a bit. At this point, I was really happy with it. I loved the "Genie in a Bottle" feel to it. (My wife thought it would tank!)

I certainly had a few interesting comments during the week. One said I should have titled it "Farrah Faucet". Another liked the idea of "Women on Tap". I had one that commented that women don't bathe with lipstick on. I was pretty happy that my wife was willing to put up with the distortion for the shot, I wasn't going to ask her to do it sans makeup. Aperture F2.8, ISO - 100, Shutter – 1/125.

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