mirror moves

i completely forgot about having taken this picture of pleasant...she and i took so many. this was taken back in 1978 when we were hanging out with the mumps as they made their "muscle boys/rock n roll this" single in los angeles.

photos in mirrors present both amazing possibilities and a load of challenges. but i think the upsides definitely outweigh the downsides.

shooting in a mirror suddenly gives the image a whole new layer of meaning, not to mention light - both reflected and refracted.










there are the up and downsides of the photographer being caught in the image. while the alfred hitchcock in each of us may find this appealing, it grounds the photograph as a photograph. on the other hand...the viewer sees the image being made, and that act is immortalized together with the vision of the photographer, and she becomes the viewed as well as the viewer.


in this photo, taken backstage at the whisky a go go, you can see not only the subjects, clem burke and john browner - but you can see my flash, you can see another photographer snapping the guy sitting next to browner, and in the mirror, above clem's head, you can see the reflection of jeffrey lee pierce.







moments later, i turned around and took a sweet portrait of him, before the trials and tribulations of being jeffrey lee pierce of the gun club kicked in. despite what all his friends and i have said about him, i do believe that particular image is the true mirror image of jeffrey lee pierce.