Special effects Play in puddles

Want to shoot an original image of a familiar landmark? Wait for it to rain, says Paul Grogan

Here at Towers, we try to avoid shooting in the historic city of Bath, not least because it’s right on our doorstep, which means we’ve done it to death. This issue, though, we set ourselves a challenge: could we, in the space of a lunch break, head out and a shoot a photograph of the city’s most famous landmark, Bath Abbey, that we wouldn’t be able to find on any of the postcards that you can buy around town?

The solution presented itself when a rain shower filled the paving slabs around the abbey with puddles. They provided the ideal opportunity for getting creative with reflections. The key, as we discovered, was to wait until we had blue skies overhead, and the sun was bathing the Abbey in golden light. Then all we had to do was get down on our hands and knees and start experimenting…