With the holiday season coming at the end of the year, many people reflect upon the year’s memories with family and friends. In most cases, those reflections are probably pleasant ones. As I reviewed my collection of images for this challenge, though, I came across an image created on a visit to a reflecting pool that caused me to reflect upon a time of tragedy in our country. On April 19, 1995, 168 people lost their lives in the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. This pool was built upon the site of the Alfred P Murrah Building which was destroyed by the blast on that fateful day.

In this week’s challenge, P.A. Moed asks us to share our reflective images. She writes, “I’m fascinated with reflections. They add another dimension to a photo–almost as if we’re capturing another world in the reflective surface.” She challenges us to share our own reflective images as she has done in her post here. In the photo above, I feature my own selfie captured from the back seat of a Civil Air Patrol aircraft. We were flying a practice photo mission when I noticed my own reflection in the mirror mounted on the strut of this aircraft. That mirror is used by the pilot to view the relative location of a glider under tow at the end of a 250-foot (76 m) long tow rope. It just happens to be at the right angle from the back seat to view the rear of our own aircraft.

On a cruise a few years ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop on the ship and I noticed the glass in the coffee bean display windows reflected some of the passengers sitting by the windows and enjoying the ocean view along with their morning coffee.

My last reflection for this challenge features one of my favorite photos. Though I have a bunch of money tied up in mid-grade photographic gear, one of my favorite photos was actually captured with my cell phone. We’d been walking along Honky Tonk Row in Nashville, Tennessee most of the evening when a short-lived thundershower opened up the skies and completely changed the complexion of the street. From a doorway we found with an overhang large enough to protect us from the shower, I captured this street scene. It gave us an excuse to head into the building to enjoy some of those Nashville musical artists at work.

John Steiner