The photo is a montage with an intentional set up, more or less a studio shot. It started out with the idea of using a mirror to demonstrate hidden qualities of a person. The "studio" is my home from some years ago when I lived with my father, who is the model in this shot, in Tokyo, Japan. First we tried shooting in the hallway but it was too narrow and there were too many distracting objects. So we lifted the door of the wardrobe, which the mirror is attached to, off it's hinges and placed it in the living room. I didn't have any flashes except the built in flash on the camera, so instead I switched on every lamp in the room. 

I took many different shots for several hours, with different expressions, poses, clothes and props. In total about 3-4 rolls, when I shoot film I don't want to take hundreds of photos, but instead plan them more carefully, because of the cost of developing the film. I've put together several other montages of the images from the shooting, some were planned from the start, some ideas came too me during the shooting, and some where put together afterwards by combining photos in unexpected combinations. The camera is attached to a tripod and we were very careful not to cover the mirror in the shot with the person on the outside, because it would be too difficult to outline in the darkroom. Since my father is doing Iadio, and even won the Swedish championship, he had his authentic Iaido gi and sword close. 

The idea of this shot was to create a contrast between the self controlled businessman on the outside and the real person on the inside. Since it was taken in Japan it's also a tribute to the Japanese samurai, in the late era before they vanished the samurai became important public servants. I also like the contrast between black and white, where black represents the correct businessman and white his dream or inner perception of himself. After making the shot a realized the two persons are not looking into each other's eyes. This is a problem because if it was a real reflection they would have exactly the same pose. The point of taking mirror shots, is to make only small changes between the reflection and the real person, only noticeable after looking at the photo for a while. The ideal is to only change one or a few things, like just the expression, just the pose or just the clothes. In the end this didn't turn out that bad though. Since the samurai in the reflection is looking right in the eyes of the viewer and the businessman is looking to the side, it gives the photo an atmosphere that the samurai is the real person and the other person is just an observer, which was the intention of the shot. 

Originally the entire editing was done in a darkroom without any use of computers. The two different shots were developed and the mirror was cut from the first copy with a razor blade and glued to the second copy. It was hard to make the outlines of the mirror perfectly straight. Finally the result was photographed with ISO 100 film and developed. In this version the negative is scanned with my Minolta 5400 film scanner. I used photoshop to paste the mirror onto the second shot. I've also removed some disturbing objects, like an electrical cord using the clone stamp tool and fine tuned the edges of the mirror, which didn't come out just right in the original analog version. In a second version not posted on Onexposure I used the dodge and burn tool and the clone stamp tool to fix some uneven lighting on the floor and at the top of the mirror. I also added some grain to get the film-look it originally had. 

Any thoughts and comments are highly appreciated!