man in the mirror?

I heard the most interesting Radio Lab a couple weeks ago. It was about symmetry in human life, and one of the segments told the story of a man who, simply by changing his hair from a right part to a left part, completely turned his life around. Jad interviewed the guy and he explained that while looking in the mirror, he had thought he was looking pretty fresh; however this was a backwards image and the rest of the world didn’t see him the same way. One day he realized this and decided to swap the side of his head the part was on, from the right side to the left, to see what happened. That night, he went out and met up with a big group of kids down by the aqueduct; a group that had previously ridiculed and even beaten him, most certainly for being a nerdlinger. Strangely the group welcomed him with open arms.

Jad and Robert went on to discuss this phenomenon and offered an interesting picture of President Lincoln. This is probably the most standard image of Lincoln you’ve ever seen, however they also showed it flipped horizontally, assumedly showing us what Lincoln would have seen in the mirror. It was a stark contrast to say the least.

Interested in this, I went back and looked at some pictures I’ve taken of myself in the mirror over the years. All pretty standard, but when I flipped them I nearly flipped out. OK, not really, but it was pretty surprising. “Wait a minute” I thought, “is this how people see me? How do I have any friends?!” Alright, so it wasn’t that bad, but I did wonder if that’s what I looked like to everyone else. Then I got to thinking about some of the pictures I’ve taken of myself using a tripod, so there isn’t any flipping going on. I looked at a few of these and was relieved to know that I don’t look all that much funnier than what I see in the mirror every day.

This got me thinking about how we perceive ourselves, and if a photographer who is prone to take a lot of self portraits using a tripod has a better idea of what they look like than someone who only looks at themselves in the mirror. Here are a few of me, taken using a tripod, so I assume this is how people see me. I think I look alright, and hopefully everyone else does too! Try the mirror trick out sometime; take a picture in the mirror, then flip it in a photo editing program. I think the result will surprise you, it sure did me. Although to be fair to myself, I only really looked at outtakes that I didn’t like in the first place.

Also check out that Radio Lab episode here. Look at that Lincoln picture too (just click the picture of Lincoln for it to flip).