HELP! Need advice...

[Jaen_Paul]

Hello everyone this is my first thread. I have a shoot Monday and I need to photograph a large mirror, about 8'x10' ft. The mirror will be standing up, leaning at a 45 degree angle. We'll be shooting it in a 45,000 sqft. warehouse and I dont want any reflections of the huge warehouse cluttering up the mirror, (lights, beams, columms, etc.) So my question is... Is there a way to avoid any reflextion in the mirror, or is my only alternative to find a picture of a shiny surface and superimpose it on the mirror in post? Or just fill it with white? I don't know.

Does that make sense? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

JP

[jimmyd]

i'm having difficulty figuring out what it is you want to do with the image? it's a mirror. it's going to reflect. you can make it reflect black, white, or anything you place, off-camera, in the mirror's reflection. or, you can shoot the mirror, and super something in post.

[photoshooter]

Welcome to the board, feel free to post/ask questions, folks are friendly here for the most part. Your shoot on Monday reminds me of my several shoots in a factory that manufactured industrial light fixtures. I had reflection in a glass dome of these lights and had to find a way to fix it. First of all the ambient light has to be eliminated. I had to have complete darkness in the warehouse except for my studio lights, even the windows had to be covered with cardboard to block the incoming daylight creating windows reflections in the domes. Make sure you position your studio light at such an angle that you don't catch their reflection. Another way I would attempt to solve your problem is to stretch a white fabric, a large diffuser screen might do it, aove the mirror in such an angle that only the white fabric will be reflected of the mirror into your camera. If you use a black backdrop behing the mirror and if you get the mirror to reflect the white fabric I think you will have a nice effect. Give yourself ample time to experiment with some of these variables that can affect your final outcome. Good luck

Mirrors are little tricky to work with, but can bring about interesting effects.
,

[R_Fredrick_Smith]

The real question, is shooting the mirror for what purpose. Usually a mirror is supposed to reflect "something". The question here is what do you want the mirror to reflect. If this is a product shot of a mirror, then it still needs to reflect something. Is there a model involved? If you choose to have her appear in the mirror, then you only need deal with what shows behind her.

I often shoot mirrors, and I just work around with the tilt of the mirror till in reflects something neutral and then I move a model into that scene. Otherwise, I cover the mirror surface with white paper, and then later on, put into the white area of the mirror what ever I want.

Here is an example using the white paper while the model was holding a mirror and then I put the model holding the mirror into the mirror and so forth.



Here is an example where I just provided a neutral background for the mirror. Since it contains a nude model, here's a link:

http://www.glamour1.com/photoplog/index.php?n=346

Cheers,
rfs

[Jaen_Paul]

WOW!!! I didn't expect such detailed responses. You guys are a lot of help. Thank you so much. It is a shot of just a mirror. It's for Aveda Products (but they don't want products in the shot...I know, weird) the client wants just the mirror with no reflections. I tryed to tell him that mirrors always reflect something (especially an 80 sqft. mirror) but I'm not sure he understood me. I will definetley get there early and experiment. I think the white fabric idea will suit my needs. I will definetley eliminate all ambient light. Thank you all again

JP