Double Take

Adding mirrors can multiply your portrait lighting challenges.

- Peter Kolonia

FOR MICHAEL GRECCO, a well known celebrity photographer in Los Angeles, adding a mirror to his picture of Nandy and Maya McClean made sense because as identical twins these pop/rock artists are mirror images of each other.

Photographically, though, adding mirrors to a photo can make for a lighting nightmare. Not only can reflected light bounce all over the studio, but the room and objects beyond the immediate set can also appear in the mirrors’ reflective surfaces. Happily, Grecco has a few creative solutions and tricks to work around these problems.

Whereas some photographers completely surround their mirrored sets with sheets of black velvet to control reflections, he took an easier approach. “The problem with lighting a set when you’re including a mirror is keeping your lights from striking the mirror,” says Grecco. “If the mirror reflects light, it can result in the kind of overlighting that brightens shadows and drains the scene of drama.”