They say that Impressionism is about light, surface, color and capturing fleeting moments in images. My favorite impressionist art is Monet. I have been working on photographic impressionism by taking photographs of nature reflections since 1989. By focusing on the water surface which is reflecting forests, trees, branches, and flowers on the opposite bank, I have captured these nature reflections with impressionistic effects although sometimes the end results have become more abstract. Color changes almost instantaneously when the sun hits a tree trunk or many leaves on the opposite bank in late afternoon or early morning, but will not last long. I have chased those fleeting moments with my cameras and lenses for more than ten years.

I have used both the 35mm SLR system and the medium-format rangefinder. My SLR cameras for these works have been the OM system bodies with the 100mm f/2.8 lens and the longer telephoto lenses up to the 250mm f/2 lens. My medium-format range finders have been the New Mamiya 6 and the Mamiya 6MF with the 150mm f/4.5 lens, often fitted with a front-mounted teleconverter. The teleconverter I used was the Olympus 1.7x B300 converter. The films have benn predominantly Fuji films although I have occasionally used Kodak and Agfa films. The film speeds were ISO 100 and up and sometimes I pushed the ISO 100 to 200.

Reflections soften the original structure of any kind. I have bracketed exposures to obtain several results for one composition so that I can choose the degree of softening from slow shutter speeds. Also I have tried deliberately to shoot when and where there is motion on the water. It is important but difficult to gauge the speed of water at a given moment relative to the shutter speed used, so it is necessary to use a good range of shutter speeds. The calm waters, in other words, would make only mirror images, so perfect it could be boring!

In trying to create impressionistic effects, I have not used double exposures nor any camera shakes nor rephotographing the projected original images on a screen. The camera body and sometimes the lens itself have been supported on a tripod. I have processed my scans in Photoshop, but only in enhancing colors. No blurring was introduced in Photoshop in these photographs presented here.

Most of the 40 photographs presented here have been exhibited in Virginia through Fairfax County Council of Arts and locally in various venues in Baltimore including the Asian Arts Center at Towson University.

These photos are available as signed fine-art prints, matted or unmatted. I use Lightjet prints on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper for its archival and photographic qualities rather than inkjet prints.