Thursday Salute to Originals: Blooming Distortions
An editorial photographer plays with refraction through light, glass, and water.
Suzanne Saroff is constantly searching for new ways to interpret reality through photography. With a keen eye for lighting and composition experiments, her latest series distorts vibrant floral arrangements using glass vessels filled with water.
The graphic manipulation occurs on the other side of the photographer’s lens, using natural light to distort carefully curated floral arrangements — no Photoshop here!
As beams of light travel through the water-filled glasses, they slow down and change direction slightly, “bending” the imprint on both the eye and camera sensor. The distortion changes with every new angle lighting position, creating endless versions of the same subject.
“These photos can take 20 minutes or the entire day—with the distortions I work at and the moving of all of the pieces around until everything feels just right. When I get the photo I know right away. This series is about bringing emotions to creating,” said Saroff in an interview with This is Colossal.
This Thursday, we’re saluting Suzanne Saroff’s creative and emotional application of lighting refraction in photography. You can view more of the photography on Saroff’s Instagram or website, including shoots for high-profile editorial clients like Calvin Klein, Glossier, and Prada.
Sources: Suzanne Saroff, This is Colossal