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I have had a good number of responses to my web page, but nothing on my page has drawn anywhere near the reaction that this picture has.
People have written me and asked me how I did the picture above. Trust me ladies, this isn’t brain surgery! With a little dedication and some elbow grease, you can create one too. Just do me one favor, okay? If you do one, let me see it! I would love to see how others do this effect.
Before you begin, you should have the proper tools at hand:
Camera (I prefer digital for ease of use).
Tripod for the camera.
Lights as needed for the shot.
Masking tape.
Hand cream.
A large mirror, preferably one that has straight lines framing it.
A good photo editing program (I use Microsoft Picture it 2.0)
Now on to the action! I recommend that you do this shot during the night.
If you do this during the day, the angle of the sun will change from shot
to shot and may cause the light to look funny. You can take the picture at
the same time of day on two successive days, but this is cumbersome and
cloud cover on either day may ruin it. If you must take the shot during
the day, screen out as much natural light as possible. You want the light
on both sides of the mirror to look as similar as possible.
You will need to do three pictures, so it is imperative that you use a
tripod and that the tripod stay in exactly the same position throughout the
three shots.
I recommend that you do the three shots in the following order:
Guy mode, empty room, girl mode.
As you are setting up for the guy mode shot, you will need to mark the
spots in the carpet and on the mirror where your feet and hand will go.
The tape is for the feet, and a little extra hand cream on the tips of your
fingers will mark the mirror perfectly.
I suggest that you do a sort of ‘dry run’ on this entirely in guy mode, so
that you can get an idea of how things will go once you have all the makeup
and clothing on. You do *not* want to be trying to move large furniture or
otherwise screwing up your carefully crafted work on your makeup with last
minute details. Take two shots in guy mode in different shirts to make
sure you know which picture is which. This dry run will also tell you if
your camera angle is right to see all of you in both modes.
Once you are sure you have the right setup, take the guy mode shot.
Once the guy mode shot is done, take the empty room picture. This one
probably won’t be too hard to do. Remember to move any extraneous stuff
that you do not want in the final picture out of the view of the camera.
Now take the girl mode shot. You may need extra lighting on ‘her’ to make
the look good, and remember, only the reflection has to look good. Do not
worry about the lights showing in the picture as you will cut them out of
the picture later. I had to set up the lights so they were coming from behind and over
my shoulder, but then, I do not have any kind of professional photographic
lights. Use whatever works for you!
Once you have all three shots, it is time to go to the electronic dark
room.
This is how I did it, but you may have a better way (and if you do please
tell me so that I can share it with our sisters):
1. Use the guy mode shot as your main picture.
2. Cut out the mirror in the empty room picture. This is where having a
mirror with straight lines pays off big time! Paste the empty room mirror
over the mirror in the guy mode shot. It should completely cover the guy
mode reflection.
3. Go to the girl mode picture and cut out *only* the reflection of you,
then paste it onto the mirror in the guy mode shot. Make sure the fingers
line up in each image. You want to be very meticulous in your
cut-and-paste on this one. Zoom in as closely as possible to do this to
be as accurate as possible.
4. The girl image may have her hand ‘over’ the guy image if you weren’t
perfect with your cut-and-paste of your hand. If this happens go back to
the guy shot and cut the hand out of the picture and paste it on top of the
hand in the final image.
You did it! A ‘mirror’ shot of your very own.