“The mirror doesn’t lie.”

EXCUSE ME.

We’ve known since childhood that mirrors can lie. We literally built fun houses around the evidence. One makes you six feet wide. Another turns your head into a potato.

And then somehow we left the carnival and collectively agreed that all the other mirrors are trustworthy.

But look at this one.

I photographed it because it was beautiful. I didn’t realize at the time that I was documenting evidence.

It is undeniably beautiful, framed in heavy, twisting gold. Yet it performs the exact same trickery—just with better manners.

It catches the room and gives it back differently. What ends at a wall suddenly appears to continue. A small space feels larger. Light seems to come from somewhere it doesn’t.

It makes the small feel boundless.

The closed feel open.

We know this.

In fact, we hang mirrors in small rooms for exactly that reason.

We knowingly bring an object into our homes because of its remarkable ability to convince our eyes that there is more space than actually exists.

Then we stand in front of it.

And believe everything it tells us.

I’m sorry.

I find that suspicious.

The fun-house mirror was at least honest about being dishonest.

These other mirrors?

They just learned better manners.