Guidelines

Do you have a self-portrait* photograph of yourself that you've taken in a mirror or reflective surface that you would like to include in The Mirror Project?

Well, you've come to the right place. There isn't any judging - all photographs will be included, as long as they are within guidelines. The Mirror Project does retain the right to refuse any image.

These guidelines have developed over a period of time as the site has grown. Please refer to these guidelines on what you can submit and not what you see within the project itself. And while we understand that you might find these guidelines restrictive, please understand that we're trying to keep the project within the original scope.

Your email address is used only to contact you. Email addresses are not displayed and we will not divulge any email address without your consent.

You retain the copyright on your photograph. We will contact you for permission if we'd like to use the image in any other way other than publicizing the site.

What and how you can submit**:

  1. If this is your first submission, we would encourage you to spend some time looking through the photographs. The Mirror Project is about self-portraiture. You should be the one holding the camera, taking the picture. Tripods are OK. You, or some part of you, and the camera should be visible within the reflection.
  2. JPG format photographs. No BMPs. No GIFs.
  3. The JPG must be less than 30k. Or to put it another way, you will not be able to upload an image larger than 30k.
  4. The photograph should be no greater than 300 pixels on the longest dimension. An example would be 300 width x 240 height for a landscape oriented photograph, or 240 width x 300 height for a portrait oriented photograph. So, your 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 photograph is too big. Any image larger than 300 pixels will be resized during upload. Images should be at least 90 x 120 or 120 x 90 pixels.
  5. Please don't add any text or graphics around or overtop your image. This includes single pixel keylines, frames or borders around the image and dates, copyright info or urls on top. Please don't include multiple images within one image. The exception to this would be photographs taken with a Lomo Action Sampler.
  6. Photographs shouldn't be overly manipulated with filters and effects after the fact. What does that mean? A little dodging and burning to reveal an image is ok. Moving pixels around or adding or removing elements isn't. You want to crop? Crop 'til you drop, baby!
  7. Information to include: your name (first or first and last - no nicknames or noms de plumes - really!), URL if applicable, date (month & year), location (where you took the picture - city, country, etc.), title and description. Tell us a story: Why you were there, who you were with, or how you were feeling. A name and valid email address are the only required fields.
  8. How many photographs can you submit? Three per week (7 days). We hate to have to limit your participation, but we want this to be a community project that isn't dominated by a ga-zillion photographs of one or two people.

Please note: So, you're looking through the site and you see all sorts of photographs that contravene one or all of the above. That's true. There are contributions that do seemingly break the rules. Why? Well, when we started, we weren't so strict and some of the rules have been created because of our experience in running the site. We're enforcing the above.

The Mirror Project isn’t currently accepting submissions.


If your image is rejected, it's because it has somehow contravened at least one of the above guidelines and is not, in anyway, a comment on the quality of your photograph. It's also not personal, so please keep this in mind when you send an email asking for clarification. Hostility will get you nowhere.

Tips for better mirror photography:

  1. Turn the flash off! It's going to reflect and blast out your image. This is only a suggestion.
  2. Don't look at yourself in the mirror or the display of your digital camera. Look into the mirror at the lens of your camera. Makes for a better picture.
  3. Take a look around you. You'd be surprised at how many different mirrored or reflective surfaces there are around you. Be creative. It's not that we don't want to see your bathroom, baby! We want to see whatever you want to show us.

* Self-portrait: A pictorial or literary portrait of oneself, created by oneself. - dictionary.com. In this instance, we're interested in the pictorial.

** Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Email us if you want to chat.

Updated 01/22/03