Mirror

Lots of photographers use mirrors to take their self portraits. Using a mirror enables you to set up the shot as apposed to trail and error using self timer. It also however means that the camera will be in the photograph as well. Photographers chose to do this in order to show off their equipment, but also to use a different perspective. Playing around with refection can sometimes confuse the audience and make you have to look twice about where the mirror is in relation to the photographer/ camera. Here is a self portrait by Sally Mann, I like it because she has made the large camera and equipment the main point of focus in the image.

Using mirrors in self portrait is used everyday on social networking sites. People are constantly taking images of themselves for profile uses, in some ways this can be seen as a form of vanity, yet it is still a form of self portrait. The difference is they are not as personal, often edited and displayed to show you at your best.

Heres a quick one I took of myself in the mirror. My mirror is surrounded in photographs which makes it more interesting as I'm not only in it once. It also takes the main attention away from me, like in the Sally Mann self portrait, my physical self is not where the eye is drawn to straight away.