Antipodes

This is a new series, I am not even sure about the title…

Due to abundant rainfall in the past months, large portions of forests in the Netherlands are submerged underwater. Because of the reflection, the forest duplicates itself; above and below are practically the same, meeting each other in the middle. I wondered what would happen if I were to photograph this submerged forest upside down. Literally, from a higher dry patch, bending forward through my legs to capture the scene behind me.

Looking around upside down is somewhat disorienting; it does strange things to the perception of space. Not only are up and down swapped, but the left is also right, and the right is left. This may seem trivial, but it has a significant impact on the viewing experience and hence on the composition of the image.

With some images, I still mirrored them back to vertical, so everything stands upright again. Finally, I searched my archive for other images of flooded forest areas and tilted them. Interestingly, this doesn't work well in many cases, but sometimes it does indeed produce fascinating compositions.