One of my very early pictures from 1970 that I've always liked is this portrait of my sister. I had owned a camera for about one year, and I was experimenting with any technique that produced artistic results. For this shot, I asked her to stand behind a shower door, and I used the textured glass to abstract her face. The lighting came from a simple photoflood -- a $10 reflector I bought in a hardware store and a regular light bulb.
You can find many different types of textured glass in glass and mirror shops. For just a few dollars you can often find small pieces with various textures, and when you hold them up in front of a face, a flower, colored paper, and many other objects, the result often looks like a painting. For the image below, I held an 8 x 10 inch piece of glass in front of flowers in a public garden.
In a time when we are all focused on digital techniques, this creative approach to artistic pictures is fun to try.
