Recycled Reflections documents a mirrored light sculpture by Will Donaldson, built from convex parking garage mirrors, one-way reflective surfaces, and custom-programmed LED lighting.

What first drew me to the piece was how effectively it transformed familiar industrial materials into something playful and spatially disorienting. Roughly three cubic feet in size, it produces a surprising sense of depth, with reflections shifting constantly depending on angle and position.

The curvature of the mirrors plays a major role in that effect. Rather than producing a clean infinite reflection, the surface bends and fragments space, creating a visual field that feels unstable and in motion. It turns a relatively compact object into something that feels much larger and less fixed than it really is.

The LED lighting introduced another layer of variation. Because the piece could cycle through multiple lighting scenarios, its mood shifted dramatically depending on colour, brightness, and rhythm. For this shoot, we selected a rainbow lighting preset because it revealed the full spectrum of the work and emphasized its dimensionality most effectively.

From a documentation standpoint, the process became just as interesting as the object itself. Will custom-cut one of the panels so we could photograph and film inside the sculpture, using a motorized dolly, probe lens, and 360 camera to move directly into the mirrored interior.

That interior access changed the way the work could be understood. Instead of only documenting the sculpture as an external object, we were able to treat it more like a spatial environment, something to move through and experience from within.

Capturing it required a level of precision that mirrored the work itself. The camera and dolly had to align perfectly with the opening in the panel, otherwise the illusion would break. That technical constraint became part of the visual language of the shoot.

Final Thoughts: What stayed with me most about this piece was how convincingly it created a sense of space and immersion using such a compact physical form.