In photography, the idea of mirrors and windows comes from a guy named John Szarkowski, who was a photo critic. He used it to explain how some photographers look at the world. A “mirror” photo is more personal—it shows how the photographer feels or sees things inside themselves. It’s more about self-expression. A “window” photo is more about showing the world as it is, like real life without adding too much of the artist’s own ideas. It’s more like looking out at something real, instead of in. Most photographers use a mix of both, depending on what they’re trying to say.
Mirrors and window spectrum
In this activity, we arranged a series of photos on a scale from “mirror” to “window.” This helped us think about whether each photo reflected something personal about the photographer or if it simply showed the outside world without much personal input. I also looked at two of my own images—one that I felt was more of a mirror, showing my thoughts or emotions, and another that I saw as a window, capturing a moment from the world around me with less personal meaning.
Blind Mirror and window drawing
As a starter project, we watched the opening scene of the film Rear Window and took notes using two different colours— red for “mirror” and blue for “window.” Every time the camera focused on the inside of the apartment, showing the personal space or hinting at the character’s feelings, we used blue to mark it as a mirror. When the scene looked out the window into the outside world, showing other people or events happening beyond the main character, we switched to green for window. It helped us understand how film, like photography, can shift between showing the world and showing personal perspective.
https://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-4.html
Mirrors
Windows
With the research I done on Shizuka Yokomizo with their work on photography within a car window I took inspiration and done some night street photography taking photos out of my car side window and front windscreen window,
