Victoria Siemer
These images taken by Victoria Siemer have been taken from her project 'Surreal Mirrored Landscapes’; Siemer manipulates seemingly normal images of misty forests, turbulent seas, and serene skylines to create juxtaposed collages and fractured landscapes. In some pieces, reflected geometric shapes hang over natural views of grey hillsides and desolate beaches, bringing a surreal dimension to a familiar and well-loved concept. This idea inspired me to experiment with mirrors in my fifth and sixth shoot because the images with the shapes reflecting the landscape look like mirrors, which would be possible for me to do with my project. My project of man vs. nature would fit into the concept of reflecting landscapes because I could use a mirror and place it in a natural landscape, and through the mirror would be a reflection of something man made, allowing different parts of the image to juxtapose, like Siemers, but this way it will link in with my project.
This image inspired me because of the idea of the reflection on the landscape, even though the image is of the mountains from a far, there is a lot of detail, which the viewer can see. Also, if this were an image of just the landscape, it would be basic and plain, but because Siemer has included the shape, which reflects off the landscape, and is upside down, creating a juxtaposition within the image, it gives the viewer more to look at and gives the image a higher quality. The point of focus within this image is the upside down reflection of the mountain because the concept of this is unique and will draw people’s attention. However, I think that the composition of the image is quite simple because of the basic landscape used; I think this image could be improved if it was taken of a different landscape with more aspects to it. The rule of thirds is evident in this image as the sky takes up two thirds and the mountains take up the other third at the bottom, however this has been broken up by the reflected shape in the middle of the image in which Siemer has clearly not considered.
I think this is an interesting image because of the contrast between the sky and the earth as it makes the image simple but effective at the same time. When looking at the image, it has a mysterious sense of mood as the sky is cloudy and the viewer cannot see what is behind the clouds, which makes the image have more to it. Also, the angle of view is quite distorted, as it is hard to distinguish what the image is actually of, this also adds to the mystery of the image. I would say that the point of focus of this image is the circle shape in the middle of the image, which looks like a mirror as it reflecting the landscape and is the most interesting part of the image. I like the shape in the middle of the image because it gives the image a concept of reflections and gives the viewer more to look at, whereas if the image was just of the piece of land and the sky, the image would be boring and there would be nothing to look at. If I was to improve this image, I would make the colours of the land brighter because the image as it is looks dull and I think it would give the image more characteristics.
I particularly like this image because of the way that the landscape is lined up throughout the image so that the reflective part of the image in the shape is lined up with the actual landscape in the rest of the image. I also like the way that there is an upside down part to the image which gives the image more effect to the viewer and this increases the quality of the composition, especially with the shape being in the middle of the image. Also, I like the surrealism aspect as the shape which looks like the mirror is obviously edited in, but it could be implied that the shape is a mirror and would therefore, in this image, make it look like a very large mirror and therefore unrealistic and so increases the quality of the image. Looking at the sense of mood in this image, I would say that it is very mysterious as the sky is filled with mist so the viewer cannot see what is behind it and this makes the image more fascinating. However, when concentrating on the horizon, I think that Siemer could have improved on the straightness of the land as it is slightly slanted and this lowers the quality.