Scene on the Road

Photography with mirrors can go two ways. A photographer either uses them as a device to shoot a self portrait (see the rail at right) or they work really hard to not show up in them.

So I was intrigued by Inquirer senior photographer Clem Murray's portrait in today's newspaper with the story of Drexel University mathematician and mirror designer Andrew Hicks.

There are at least eight or nine mirrors - plus even more reflections of mirrors in those mirrors - but no reflections of the photographer. You can see Hicks was looking right into Clem's lens, but where is he I wondered. Was it a trick, done - with mirrors - in collusion with his expert subject?

Nope.

I asked Clem about it and (this is why I really like his picture) he did something I would never have thought of.

I know other photographers outside of journalism might Photoshop themselves out of the image, or rig up a giant black cloth backdrop like those photographers who shoot department store display windows.

What Clem did was put his camera on a tripod, set up his strobe and softbox, connected to the camera via a sync cord, composed his picture, and then simply walked away from the reflection. He put his camera on self-timer.

Simple, but it worked.

Even as a six column photo, across the whole front of the Health & Science section of the newspaper, I looked close and didn't figure it out. You can see Clem's camera in the big mirror, just behind the professor's left shoulder, looking like just some other part of his lab. Very cool. Also cool is Hick's non-reversing mirror, the one in the center of the photo with the readable newspaper print.