What are the differences between photographs that are mirrors and photographs that are windows?

Photographs that are “mirrors” tend to be Romantic, expressionistic and suggestive, shot close to the subject or with a narrow angle of vision. They lean toward abstract simplicity, even a Platonic sense of types and essences.

“Mirrors” were images meant to mirror the photographer’s own sensibility. Some words I can associate with mirror images are:

• Warped
• Naturalistic
• Subjective
• Self expression
• Romanticism
• Candid

“Windows” tend to be realistic, descriptive, taken at greater distances or with a wider angle of view. “Windows” were photos meant to act as a window for the viewer to see something that is primarily factual and external to the photographer’s own sensibility. Some words I can associate with window images are:

• Depictive
• Objective
• External
• Reality
• Anthropocene

The exhibition Mirrors and Windows, an exhibition of American photography since 1960, opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in July of 1978. The curator, John Szarkowski‘s attempted to categorise photographers whose work largely sought to see outside themselves. Szarkowski wrote in the catalogue essay that accompanied the exhibition:

“The two creative motives that have been contrasted here are not discrete. Ultimately each of the pictures in this book is part of a single, complex, plastic tradition. Since the early days of that tradition, an interior debate has contested issues parallel to those illustrated here. The prejudices and inclinations expressed by the pictures in this book suggest positions that are familiar from older disputes. In terms of the best photography of a half-century ago, one might ay that Alfred Stieglitz is the patron of the first half of this book and Eugene Atget of the second. In either case, what artist could want a more distinguished sponsor? The distance between them is to be measured not in terms of the relative force or originality of their work, but in terms of their conceptions of what a photograph is: is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world?“

– John Szarkowski, 1978

Eugène Atget (born February 12, 1857, Libourne, near Bordeaux, France – died August 4, 1927) was a French commercial photographer who specialized in photographing the architecture and associated arts of Paris and its environs at the turn of the 20th century.

Very few biographical facts are known about Atget. The Atget family (originally Atger) were saddlers and carriage-makers who had moved from Provence to the Dordogne River region after the Napoleonic Wars. When Atget was five his father died; his mother died soon afterward. He went on to act for several years in itinerant troops that barnstormed the lower levels of the theatrical audience in the provinces. By the late 1880s, when Atget was in his early 30s, he had become interested in photography. The earliest known photographs by him seem to have been made in the north of France. These works depict rural scenes, plants, and farming technology and they were presumably made as studies for painters and illustrators. By the early 1890s, Atget was working in Paris, but it was not until late in that decade that he changed the focus of his photographic business to concentrate on the city of Paris – a subject that proved of inexhaustible interest, and one that continued to nourish his mind and enrich his work for the remaining 30 years of his life.

Hilla Becher was a German artist born in 1931 in Siegen, Germany. She was one half of a photography duo with her husband Bernd Becher. They began collaborating together in 1959 after meeting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957. Bernd originally studied painting and then typography, whereas Hilla had trained as a commercial photographer. After two years collaborating together, they married. For forty years, they photographed disappearing industrial architecture around Europe and North America. They won the Erasmus Prize in 2002 and Hasselblad Award in 2004 for their work and roles as photography professors at the art academy Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.

Lime, an important building material since ancient times, is used in the production of mortar and cement. Here, the Bechers focused their attention on six towering brick chimneys that look as much like sprouting asparagus as utilitarian structures. The artists chose a similar view of lime kilns for the cover image of Anonyme Skulpturen (1970), their ambitious first publication. The book presents comparative sequences of different industrial forms, from kilns and gasometers to cooling towers, blast furnaces, and winding towers.

Within the Mirrors and Windows spectrum, I would place the two images above in these places as I believe they have contrasting purposes. The image by Eugene Atget is placed in the mirrors section because I feel it reflects more about the artist rather than through the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality. This is because I found that he decided to “concentrate on the city of Paris – a subject that proved of inexhaustible interest, and one that continued to nourish his mind and enrich his work for the remaining 30 years of his life“, which tells me that he had a passion for this type of photography and wanted to pursue it further after experimenting taking photographs of Paris. I believe it tells the viewer a story about what life was like in those days, through the use of the mini carriage, which I assume was used for carrying things. It also gives us an insight on his passion as it is said that he enjoyed photographing images that could be made for studies. However it is not completely on the left side as I do believe it also has elements of a window image, this is because Atget has clearly used two people as his main subject in the image, rather than himself or something that reflects himself, showing that the photo is objective and real. The image in the windows range taken by Bernd and Hilla Becher, is placed in this position on the scale as its main subject is a building, which can often be associated with being very subjective as it documents a building that was considered important in the 1970s. This fits into the window category successfully as by photographing a building, it is clear to me that this was not staged because the building reflects history and cannot be moved.