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| A less common image, the photograph taken with the sitter facing the camera, her back to the mirrors. |
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The method of using mirrors to produce a photograph with five simultaneous images of the sitter was first published in Scientific American in the 1890s. It was soon shared in the Encylopaedic Dictionary of Photography and in Photographic Amusements. The subject was photographed facing into two mirrors which were placed at seventy-five degrees to each other. The resulting reflections and reflections of reflections produced a set of five equally spaced images. The "photo-multigraph" was promoted as a unique way to "see ourselves as others see us.” In the coming decades the photo-multigraph was a common novelty attraction at seaside and other tourist destination photo studios throughout the United States and Europe, but the method and production of these souvenir images had all but disappeared by the 1950s.
