Gila Experiments

By Ruby Pluhar

Gila Wilderness, NM

October 24, 2017

I began the short hike over two river banks with my Plexiglas print of Mikala, where I set it up standing upright with some rocks. As I had originally photographed Mikala in the water I was interested to do some tests with the physical print in the landscape and position it around water to see how it would respond. The wind was very strong on this day so it meant the Plexiglas was bending with the wind at an almost vertical angle when I installed it. From this, when the light was shining upon the print, it reflected in to the water and became illuminated with the light. I was drawn to create some water sculptures with the camera by documenting the figure moving in and out of focus with the effects of the winds on the water. The figure appears to be in a state of drowning but also rising to the surface of the water. At the points when the figure is fairly crisp, the whole spectrum of the rainbow can be seen. I feel like this image looks like the figure is floating in space. I was very glad to have experimented with the print over water as I had no idea it would reflect so strongly over the water when the print was warped and bent towards it.