Stranica 34 [34]
OCR
14 LIGHT AND WATER landscape appears in the reflexion, whereas, on the other hand, the more obliquely we are looking on to the surface the more nearly will the actual scene and its reflexion resemble one another; in fact, if the eye were at the very level of the water, the one would be the exact double of the other. It is simply a question of the angle that the direction of vision makes with the water ; if this is small the difference is small, and wzce versa. So it happens that, in looking down on to a lake from above, we often get nothing but sky reflexion; distant mountains, on the other hand, seen across a wide expanse of water, are reproduced in their full height (Plate 11). As a picture cannot be taken from the actual level of the water, there is always some difference between the direct view and the view by reflexion, though in the case of distant objects it may be so slight as to be imperceptible. But objects in the foreground show this difference in a marked degree, those nearest to the spectator rising up in the reflexion relatively to those behind them. Thus in the photograph of the St. Moritz lake opposite the mountains seem to be exactly repeated in the water, but the roof of the little
