Rainy morning reflections with an older Olympus EM-1 mark II

I haven’t shot the Olympus OM-D EM-1 II in awhile. This particular morning, for my morning walk, it was a bit wet. I opted to take my weather sealed EM-1 and the also weather sealed Zuiko 12-40 f/2.8 Pro. I’m glad I did, not so much for the weather sealing (turns out I didn’t need it), but more for the flippy screen allowing me to get close to the ground for some reflection shots in puddles.

Once I saw my first puddle across the street from a church that I walk by, I had to cross to see if there was an image in there somewhere. I almost didn’t, as I had a different destination in mind. I’m glad I did. It was a good warm-up shot.

I didn’t think much of this image at the time. I thought it might be good in monochrome, but I couldn’t be sure as I wasn’t shooting in a monochrome profile and my eye still isn’t trained to see in monochrome. A skill I’m still working on. I thought it turned out decent; a good start.

Since the light wasn’t great, it was quite overcast this day, I was hoping that I would find some more puddles in convenient locations to further practice these reflections. As luck would have it, I did. I just needed to get a little creative as they don’t just jump out at you. You pretty much need to test every puddle and work the scene to see if there is anything interesting there.

I travelled on to the little downtown we have here in Hobe Sound. I know there are some colorful buildings and murals and I might get lucky with a shot or two. My next shot that I found was on the side of a convenience store here. The type of place people on their way to or from our beach would hit up. It’s the last stop before hitting the bridge to Jupiter Island. I took a few shots, but this is the one I liked the most.

I generally like this one. The way the boardwalk from the mural seems continued into the reflection, the vibrant colors. It seems a little surreal. Which, I guess it is. The mural being interesting to look at doesn’t hurt either. The type of mural that seems like it belongs here in my quiet beachside town.

I tried different angles of attack here, but this is the one I ended up liking the most. The head on shot, where the boardwalk matches up with the boardwalk in the reflection almost.

Looking for compositions was fun. It was a break from my normal routine, and as such, I walked around working each scene more than I normally would. It was a good break from the norm.

These shots would not have been captured as well, nor composed as well without the flippy screen. The camera itself is pretty brilliant. I don’t understand why the micro four thirds community receives so much hate. this seven year old camera more than holds it’s own in almost every situation and then some. The feature set was well ahead of it’s time. To think I picked this camera up over a year ago for under $500 USD is incredible. I’m pretty sure they’re cheaper now, and worth every penny.

Moving on I find more opportunities for reflections.

This particular shot, I definitely envisioned as monochrome from the get go. The colors weren’t great because of the muted light, but I knew I could work with these shapes and some contrast. I intentionally blew out the sky here. I wanted it to fade away and add some contrast to peak and the tiki hut. I could have recovered the shadows in the parking lot here if I were to exposed for the sky, but I wanted all the detail focus to be there without compromise.

It’s a simple shot that for some reason I gravitate to.

This is just a normal scene most days. But today, I really enjoyed this colorful chair with it’s reflections and the mangroves mural also being reflected. The colors were vibrant. In editing, I wanted to emulate more of a velvia filmic look and punched up the contrast and only slightly added some saturation. But mostly, this was the way the scene looked.

Again, I had to work the scene a little to find the right composition, first starting with the mural reflections more, but I ended up like the chair and a tiny bit of the mural. It just seemed to work with the shape of the puddle more.

Another pre-meditated monochrome image here. I had walked by this to get to my local coffee shop and didn’t see anything, but on the way back this scene was more evident. Granted, you don’t see this walking by, but only when you kneel down inches from the puddle. Still, this angle, this backdrop of the tree, the probability that it’s twisted branches would be reflecting in the puddle were not clear until I reversed direction. This is why it’s so important to stop and look back when going on a photo walk. The different perspective might reveal a photo that wasn’t there.

I hope you enjoy these shots I took on a seven year old, micro four thirds camera as much as I did taking them.

Cheers!