This is my first post after leaving the nursary, which explains why none of you know who I am. I know all the talk on "how did they do that cover image" relating to FYC... has died now, but I still wanted to weigh in with my own opinion on the subject, because, several years ago, I tried taking a similar series of pictures myself. Studying for a GCSE in photography, I was assigned the subject "Distortion" for a picture series, and had the (presumably unoriginal) idea of photographing someone looking in the mirror, with somebody else's face looking out. I set up some white backgrounds (actually, a spare display board and the wall of a corridor), hung a mirror on the wall, and found a chair. After a bit of adjustment so that I could see model's face directly (from the side) and in the mirror (full-frontal), without seeing any nasty shadows, or myself or the camera in the mirror, I rounded up everyone in my photography class, plus anyone who walked past (several art teachers and a bewildered First-Year Kid), sat them down in front of the mirror and took their picture. Afterwards, I printed the best pictures (being careful to give them all the same enlargement), then carefully cut out the mirror from some of them. I set up a DIY repro-stand by dismantling my tripod and reassembling it upside-down, then carefully placed the cut-out mirrors over the complete photographs before taking a copy photo. On the resulting print, there was no trace of any alteration. It took a bit longer than it probably would today with Photoshop -- about an hour for the shoot, then four or five in the dark room -- but messing around with chemicals was far more satisfying. I was very disappointed, though, by the reaction I got. "It's a trick angle," everyone said, "the man in the mirror is behind the camera." Unhappy, I never finished the project and only printed one of the final "composite" pictures. Anyway, having said all that, I'd like to point out that it's easy to prove that the FYC... cover was done with two different people, rather than with a mirror and tricky editing. I don't think anybody pointed this out: the shadows give it away. From the visible shadows, both figures are lit by two lamps, both from the bottom right. If a mirror were there, the reflected figure would appear to be lit from the other direction. In addition, the shadow of the real-world book could not fall on the mirror-world person if this person was just a reflection. I also think that real-world book is too far to the left, and would hit the mirror, but that's a bit hard to judge. Of course, the paranoid might like to speculate that the shadows were deliberately painted in afterwards. Note that if you magnify the mirror-world girl's left eye, the resulting image also proves that the moon landings were faked :-) Anyway, as this is a delurk, here's some incidental information about myself. Name: Will. Age: 22. Living in: Edinburgh. I lurked on sinister for about a year, back in 1997 (in the days of its ed.ac.uk address), but unsubscribed as I was going away on a field trip. I never rejoined, until the other week. Occupation: student of archaeology (my degree result is released next week). Likes: staying in bed. Doesn't like: having to get out of bed. Which reminds me: I Fought In A War (no, not *me*). The line "beyond the bedsit infamy of the decade gone before" reminded me of the review of IYFS printed in the Guardian newspaper, which (IIRC) said that they sounded as if they hardly ever left their bedsit (or words to that effect). I remembered it, because that was the first time I heard about B+S. Can't help wondering if it's deliberate or coincidental. Ta-taa, Will S -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+