How to create a mirror image photo effect in-camera

In this tutorial we show you how to duplicate a cityscape and create a mirror image effect in-camera using little more than perspex, perspective and precision.

For a new take on the standard cityscape, we are going to turn busy, inner-city life upside down. Using a combination of perspective and perspex, you can replicate any cityscape in a striking reflection.

Look around and you’ll find plenty of suitable buildings for reflections, especially in the centre of a city. Of course, you can find many reflections in windows and water, but these don’t quite give the remarkable clarity you can achieve using a super-smooth shiny surface.

The method is simple: you position a reflective sheet of material in front of a cityscape to double up the scene. A mirror is the obvious thing to use, but a wide variety of materials will work for this technique, and for our shoot we opted for a sheet of black perspex.

The perspex was reflective enough to give a mirror-like reflection, although the image was only visible when looking low down and directly across the sheet.

This is because the distance between the camera and the subject will affect where you have to stand in order to capture the mirrored scene; if we’d placed the perspex at the base of a building, we’d have had to look almost straight down to see the reflection of our subject.

There are some tricky techniques to master if you’re to pull this effect off. Don’t let that put you off, though, as with some precise positioning you will be able to reflect your favourite scene with ease, and gain a greater understanding of perspective and light to further your photography.

A mirror is the obvious thing to use, but a wide variety of materials will work for this technique, and for our shoot we opted for a sheet of black perspex.

SEE MORE
How to make a still life cityscape and finish the effect with lighting and focus stacking

How to set up your mirror-image effect

01 Raise your game
First, find a location. You need a clear line of buildings, standing on a straight horizon so you’ve got something to align the sheet of perspex with. It’s best if you can raise the perspex off the ground, to enable you to get close enough to its surface to shoot, so bear this in mind when scouting.

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02 Square things up
Make sure that your perspex or mirror is square with the horizon, otherwise one side of your scene will end up being larger than the other. We balanced ours on a bin, but you could use a second tripod and a fence to create a makeshift table if there are no horizontal supports in your location.

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03 Hold still…
Set up your tripod so that the head is level with the perspex (one with bubble levels will be very useful here). Even if you are not using a long exposure for your shots, a tripod will keep your camera still, giving you the time to check the horizon and focusing properly.

04 Squeeze it in
It is best to use a wide-angle lens for this project as you will be shooting close up to the perspex and fitting a large scene in may prove difficult with standard lens. If you shoot from further back to accommodate a longer focal length, the reflection may be too narrow to see clearly.

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05 Stay on the level
Now put your camera on your tripod and make final refinements to its position. Position the lens so that the bottom quarter is actually below the level of the perspex. Use Live View if you need to, to ensure you get the optimum viewpoint looking across the reflection.

06 Go deep
As the perspex sheet and buildings are far away from one another, you will need to use a narrow aperture to keep both the real scene and the reflected one in sharp focus. We shot at f/16 for maximum depth of field without risking softness from lens-created diffraction.

Final Tips
If you are struggling to get the whole image sharp, take two images, one focused on the building and the other on the perspex. Open the images in Photoshop, drag the perspex-focused image onto the building image and line them up using the Move tool.

With the Marquee tool set to rectangle (alt/ctrl + M), draw around the reflection. Make sure that the rectangle is level along the horizon, then click the Add vector mask icon at the bottom of the layers panel.

Finally, give your surface a wipe with a lens cloth before taking a shot – it’s easier than removing fingerprints in post-production

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