Figure 1 – Floor mirror in the shoe department of a department store, Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019

Figure 1 is a photograph of a floor mirror that I took with my IPhone 6 in the shoe department of a local department store. First of all, I guess it may become one of those images remembering passing things. How long will department stores last, and what will be the re-purposing of local malls? But let’s not go there today. These questions are too profound for the frivolity of the photograph.

First, I tried very hard to keep myself out of the image. The soft shadow of my hands holding the camera just make it in. There were a number of aspects of this image that struck me when I was taking it and after. These are exercises in optics and geometry. First is the illusion that parallel lines meet before infinity. Second is the many and sometimes contradictory parallel planes that the mirror and the photographer’s perspective create. For me that is where a lot of the interest lies. This is because you try to figure out how the peculiar angles of the mirror first to the floor and second relative to the camera fall just the way they fall. Finally, there are the two diamonds which were my point of compositional focus. These diamonds, it seems to me, are what ultimately creates the composition.