Over the years I’ve been drawn to photos of mirrors and especially mirror self portraits. As a kid I was always fascinated with mirrors and reflections, as well as taking pictures. However I long hated any and all photos of myself, but now as I am getting older I appreciate having images documenting how I grow not only as a person but as a photographer as well. Now I enjoy taking these self portraits as it allows me to show me and my relationship with my camera and my growth.

These mirror self portraits were taken while exploring Honesdale in the spring of last year. As part of Photography as a Means of Self Expression (Art 319 with Professor Sue Jenkins) part of our class explored Honesdale through photographs. I took the opportunity to continue this specific body of work as well as explore other things like my mini series on light fixtures, and some fun architectural work with all of the intriguing buildings in Honesdale. I wanted each photo to tell a different story about my surroundings and let the viewer draw their own conclusions about me.

These studio mirror experiments were taken right before the start of my Portrait Photography class in the fall of 2022, (Art 331 with Professor Peter Nardone) and were taken with a shard of a mirror. When I took this class I was entering my second year of college and had started understanding not only my camera, but myself better as well. I had a lot of fun shooting these in the studio with just one light and a tripod and recently went back to re-edit them in a style that reflects my current skill level. I intentionally hid part of my face behind the camera in each photo to not only tell a story about myself for the viewer, but also to create some tension and suspense.

These were taken in my freshman dorm when I was starting to learn about composition as well as shooting with aperture priority mode. Having just finished my junior year and awaiting my senior year, it’s fun looking back at these images and seeing how much I’ve changed in addition to my photographic style.

This was the mirror self portrait that started it all. One of my most important photos I’ve taken as it really fanned the flames of my desire to learn more about photography and eventually choose to focus on it in college and make it my career. It was one of my first photos I took with my then brand new camera (Canon EOS Rebel T6) way back in my sophomore year of highschool. I had no idea how it worked and it took about 30 tries in complete darkness to get this photo, but when I did I was ecstatic. While it may not actually feature my face or anything more than my hands, I still consider it a self portrait as it tells a story about me and was my way of documenting myself.

Thanks for going on this short walk back in time and for more of my work check out my instagram @otter.images! I’ll be posting a lot of work from this past semester soon, and hopefully will be announcing some fun stuff in the near future as well 🙂