In the following image we see a photo of a piano keyboard stored in the cabinet under our TV set:

Well, at a quick glance it looks like that’s what the photo shows. However, we don’t really have a piano keyboard in our apartment. So, in the photo it’s all just an illusion.   The shadow and light patten created from the sun beaming down and through the radiator  (which is just off-screen to the right) is cast onto the wooden floor. That shadow/light pattern is then reflected in the glass door of TV table cabinet, creating what looks like a piano keyboard sitting inside that cabinet.

When we noticed it on Saturday afternoon, I grabbed the  camera sitting on a table next to me, which happened to be my fancier Nikon dSLR. Then I went and got my HTC smartphone to take a photo with that, since later that afternoon I was going to be teaching my workshop for teenagers. Since their homework assignment is to look around the house for interesting and unexpected photo ideas, this seemed like a perfect one to add to my examples.

The photo above is the one taken with the HTC phone. The Nikon camera includes many more details in the scene. Now, usually, that’s a good thing, but the piano keyboard illusion isn’t nearly as good when you can see the grain in the wooden floor in as part of the reflection.

It was kind of fun to have an example to show the workshop of something that can work better — for certain purposes — with a cellphone camera. Not that all of them only brought cell phones to class; most of the 9 participants had point-and-shoot cameras as well as cell phones, but definitely all of them were interested in taking photos with their cell phones.

Now, that’s not to say that the Nikon dSLR doesn’t take good photos, of course.  Take a look at this one, for example:

What do you think: perhaps that’s a spot light on a castle wall at night?

Well, no. It’s actually just that the previous  Nikon photo of the “piano keys” turned on its side with a little digital darkroom magic thrown in to darken out distracting extraneous details.  You also get a different, but also fun effect, but flipping this new version upside down:

So many variations possible just from a single photo or scene.  As an example for teaching the possibilities with photography, it doesn’t get much better than that. 😉