SMOKE AND MIRRORS - A TUTORIAL

Well, there's no smoke but there is a very small bathroom and a mirror...

I had to shoot this bathroom recently and there was really no room at all for the camera or lights. I set up the camera on the tripod literally touching the back wall and was only able to compose by using the Live View function of the Canon 5D MKII and my laptop. I taped a lightstand to the tile wall with gaffers in the only place it would fit (above the toilet), the problem was that it was obviously showing in the mirror along with the cable to the camera and the power cord to the head (image 1).

I shot the image like this then moved the light in front of the camera while being careful to not touch the camera or tripod. I did another shot with the light bouncing off the white ceiling in the new position (image 2).

Now all I had to do was stack these two shots together in Photoshop and create a layer mask on the second image so that the only part of it that was showing was the image in the mirror. Since this was a rectangular shape it was easy and took only a minute but this could have been done regardless of the shape - it would just take more time to create the mask. (images 3 and 4).

I shot these from outside the bathroom controling the camera with the laptop. Here is the final image after a little more work to straighten things up and after I retouched the cables out (image 5).

This is yet another one of those situations that I DO NOT think I could have done the shot with film - at least not as easily.

File info: Canon 5D MKII with Sigma 12-24 @ 15mm, 2 sec. @ f/14, Dyna-Lite 1000XL @ 1 pop