Mike FollowsSutton Coldfield, West Midlands, UK “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” The wicked queen in Snow White trusted her mirror to tell the truth. But do mirrors sometimes lie? A smooth mirror produces specular reflection, preserving fine detail.
But dust or a thin film of grease on its surface can scatter a little light from bright areas into neighbouring darker ones, rather like a photographic soft-focus filter. This reduces the contrast of pores, blemishes and fine wrinkles. A photograph captures a fraction of a second and can preserve a fleeting expression that we would barely notice in a moving face but may find unflattering in a still image.
Photographs taken at close range can also exaggerate nearer features, particularly the nose, while lighting can emphasise skin texture, wrinkles and blemishes. In a mirror, by contrast, we receive continuous feedback, adjusting our expression, head angle, posture and gaze. Because faces aren’t symmetrical, after a lifetime of seeing our mirror image, the photograph version can look wrong to us Some people simply look better in person – and perhaps in a mirror – than in a photograph.
Faces are animated: eyes move, smiles develop and disappear, and changes in head position alter both expression and how light falls across the face. For some people, these changing expressions and head movements may make them more attractive to others. There is also familiarity.
A photograph normally shows the version of our face that other people see, whereas a mirror reverses left and right. Because faces aren’t perfectly symmetrical, after a lifetime of seeing our mirror image, the photographic version can look subtly wrong to us, while appearing perfectly normal to everybody else. Perhaps we just need to take photos of our mirror reflections.
WelsbyGlastonbury, Somerset, UK The images in a photograph are static. But mirror appearances, and particularly facial expressions, are dynamic and therefore perceived as younger and inevitably better-looking. At least that is what the (non-existent) person in the mirror will think!
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