Through The Looking Glass

Mirrors have always terrified me because growing up, I felt like I was being watched by something on the other side, something more than my reflection. Everything about that “mirror world” seemed so backwards, because it quite literally is; there are mirror images of everything. So I’ve always thought to myself, the reflection in that world can’t be the only thing that’s backwards, there is something much darker and much more evil about that world than the one we currently live in. Imagine you wake up one day to the sounds of tapping on glass; you open up your bedroom window and it’s not coming from outside so you check everywhere in the house and you can’t find the noise until the last place left to check is the bathroom. As you get closer to the bathroom, the tapping gets louder and louder and becoming less of a tapping and more of a pounding, someone is pounding on the wall but you’re home alone. You bust into the bathroom to find your reflection is the one pounding on the glass, trying to get through the looking glass, trying to get to you. You look at the reflection and you know it’s you but at the same time, it’s not you. It’s eyes and mouth are missing, no matter how wide it tries to open it’s mouth and scream, you can never hear it. The reflection wants to change places with you, leaving you trapped on the other side, on the backwards world that it resides in. You run away and leave the bathroom and in the morning, you remove the mirror from your bathroom and every mirror from your house and put them in the garbage. Out of sight, out of mind, but the next night, you hear the pounding. The mirrors are gone so you have no idea why you are still hearing the noise; are you traumatized? Imagining it? Going crazy? You walk into the kitchen and that’s when you see it, your reflection. Your reflection is everywhere, in the window, in the silverware, in cups and plates, the pounding is coming from everywhere and you can’t escape it, you can’t escape your reflection.

That was a story I had come up with a few years ago and it was the inspiration behind this particular photo when we were shooting this past weekend in Los Angeles. When I looked through the lens at my model, who also happens to be my girlfriend, I was just testing the lighting before the shoot actually began but once I seen the image in my mind, I had to create it. The whole idea for the shoot ORIGINALLY came from the hotel we were staying at, the lighting and colors of the bathroom spoke to us and we both just knew we were going to get some amazing content there. I had set up my camera and we did a few different runs where I had her look at the camera then at the mirror then i let her finish doing her makeup. I just couldn’t get the thought of those images out of my head, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I uploaded the photos onto my computer and opened up photoshop and layered the photos together and I edited the photos with purpose. I edited them for halloween, it’s my favorite holiday and I had never really done a halloween inspired shoot before so I felt like this was the perfect opportunity to do so. After about 20 minutes of staring at my screen, working on minor details, I finished the edit and showed my girlfriend. She was so mindblown at what I had done to the photo she needed to see more edits so we continued to shoot to create the best art we could.