World, distorted!

This is a shot made a few years ago with my compact Canon iXus 400, a small 400-million-pixels digital compact camera, so small, it is in my pocket most of the time, especially while traveling.

This shot was made in a mid spring day in a small town near Shanghai, China, a routined business trip I made to review some of my industrial design work. A Chinese supplier of mine, took me to this Chinese restaurant, along with my assistant and few others, and while setting down, the waiter removed the glasses on the table and place them by the window. While I sat down, I turned to look thru the window for an outdoor view and saw the townhouses image behind the drinking glasses, and I told myself, what a picture, and so I record it.

Everyday in life presented in front of us a rich amount of visual material, awaits our discovery. A compact digital camera, being small, just enough to make shot such as this becomes possible. Should I use a much larger DSLR or even medium format digital camera backs, I could not make this picture, due to the distance between the camera and the glasses - the limitation in optical design for lens to serve larger sensor, also due to the much limited depth of field that would not register enough sharpness, and the corresponding lens needed to reach this result.

A camera is a tool, its use is depend on the photographer, to capture the image such as this that otherwise difficult or not possible to do. This picture was exhibited in Thailand National Gallery, and among one of my most favorite captures.