A cinematic film photograph taken from inside a tall antique mirror in a cramped Halloween costume shop at closing time, as if the camera sits behind the old glass, looking out through the mirror's ornate gilded frame at a woman in her twenties who stands close in front of it, adjusting a pointed black witch's hat as she studies her reflection. Behind her, the back wall of the shop is covered from floor to ceiling with rows of rubber monster masks hanging on hooks, and a hand-lettered cardboard sign taped among them reads "EVERYTHING 50% OFF" in red marker. A flickering fluorescent tube lights the shop in greenish white while a purple neon bat in the window adds a violet edge. She has a playful, skeptical half-smile, one eyebrow raised. Shot on Fujifilm Superia 400 with a 35mm lens, gritty grain, true-to-life skin texture and the slightly green cast of fluorescent light. Funny, cluttered and quietly creepy. Up close, she has a round, freckled face with a small upturned nose, full cheeks flushed pink from the warm shop, and bright hazel eyes framed by thick dark lashes. Her dark auburn hair is cut in a shaggy shoulder-length style with curtain bangs that the hat brim presses down over her forehead. A small silver hoop sits in her left nostril, and her lips wear a sheer cherry balm. Fine natural texture shows across her nose and chin, along with a few faint marks along her jaw. She wears an oversized vintage varsity jacket in faded green with cream sleeves over a black hoodie, its hood bunched at her neck, and loose black corduroy trousers. The witch's hat is cheap, shiny black polyester with a stiff wire brim and a purple satin band, and a small orange price tag dangles from a thread near its tip, swinging slightly. Around her neck she has looped a black and orange feather boa that she has clearly just pulled from a bin, and a pair of purple sunglasses with star-shaped frames is pushed up into her hair under the brim. Both her hands are raised to the hat brim, tilting it a little lower over her right eye. Her nails are painted a chipped dark green, she wears a chunky silver ring on one thumb and a woven friendship bracelet on her left wrist, and a crumpled paper shopping list pokes out of her jacket pocket. She leans her weight on one leg with her head tilted, studying herself with mock seriousness, one eyebrow raised high and her lips pressed into a crooked half-smile as she decides whether the hat makes her look spooky or silly. Her eyes look straight into the mirror, which means straight into the camera. The mirror's frame fills the edges of the image: heavy carved wood covered in flaking gold leaf, with scrolling leaves, a cherub's face at the top center with a chipped nose, and dark tarnish in the deep grooves. Along the inside edge of the frame, the old glass is foxed with grey-black spots, and a hairline crack runs across the lower left corner, adding a faint ghosted line across the view. A curling paper tag tied to the frame with string reads "ANTIQUE MIRROR $40" in pencil. Behind her, the shop's back wall is a dense grid of rubber masks hanging on pegboard hooks: green-faced witches with warts, grey zombies with peeling skin, werewolves with matted fur, pale vampires with widow's peaks, grinning clowns with red noses, skulls, pig faces and wrinkled old-man faces, row after row up to the ceiling, each with dark empty eye holes. Their latex surfaces shine under the fluorescent light, and their hollow eyes all seem to stare at her back. In the third row from the top, just over her left shoulder, one pale old-man mask has real eyes behind its eye holes: wet, bloodshot and looking straight at her reflection, while every mask around it stays empty and dark. Between her and the wall, the shop is packed. A rack of plastic-wrapped costumes on hangers shows a pirate, an astronaut and a hot dog, a bin overflows with foam swords and plastic pitchforks, and a mannequin wearing a full gorilla suit stands with its gorilla head tucked under its arm. Shelves hold tubes of face paint, bottles of fake blood, glow sticks and packets of plastic fangs, and tangled black and orange garlands hang from the ceiling. At the right side of the frame, a glass counter holds trays of rubber spiders, novelty eyeballs and cheap plastic rings, and an old cash register sits on top of it beside a bowl of candy corn. A second hand-lettered sign taped to the front of the counter reads "ALL SALES FINAL" in black marker, and a small warm lamp on the counter throws a pool of orange light across the candy. To the left, the shop's front window faces the dark street, its glass sprayed with fake cobwebs, and a purple neon bat hangs in it, buzzing with light. A few blurred silhouettes of people pass by outside in the drizzle, their umbrellas catching the purple glow. The floor is scuffed grey linoleum with a trail of spilled glitter and a dropped plastic spider near her feet. She wears worn white high-top sneakers with orange laces, one lace untied. Above her, the ceiling is low acoustic tile with a brown water stain, hung with plastic bats on fishing line and a paper skeleton that turns slowly on its string. The light comes from a long fluorescent tube overhead that flickers slightly, giving everything a cold greenish-white cast and hard shadows under the hat brim and her nose. The purple neon bat spills a violet glow across her left cheek and the left edge of the mirror frame, and the small lamp on the counter adds a warm orange glow on the right, so her face is lit by three colors at once. Her pose shows small, real details: a faint red line on her forehead where the tight hat band presses, a stray auburn hair caught in the boa's feathers, a tiny smear of the shop's glitter on her cheek, and the fluorescent tube reflected as a thin white line in each of her eyes. Her mouth is slightly open, as if she is about to say something sarcastic to herself. A red plastic shopping basket hangs from her left elbow, holding a bottle of fake blood, a packet of plastic vampire fangs, a tube of green face paint and a bag of candy corn. The varsity jacket is old and well loved: its wool body has pilled, the cream leather sleeves are cracked at the elbows, a large felt letter "H" is stitched on the left chest in cream and green, and a small enamel pin shaped like a ghost is fastened to the collar. The mask wall is lit unevenly, so the lower rows shine under the fluorescent tube while the top rows near the ceiling sit in shadow, their faces barely visible. A few masks hang crooked on their hooks, one has fallen face up onto the floor below the wall, and neon orange price stickers on several foreheads read "$19.99" and "$24.99". The mask with real eyes is otherwise identical to the others, a grey wrinkled old man with tufts of white hair glued to its scalp, and only the wet shine of its eyes and a faint flush of real skin around the eye holes give it away. On a shelf beside the mask wall sits a row of white foam wig heads wearing bright wigs: a tall green beehive, a sleek silver bob, a long black witch wig and a curly orange clown wig, each foam head painted with simple eyes. Hanging from the end of the costume rack is a full-length black hooded robe with a plastic scythe tied to its hanger, and beside it a bag holding an inflatable dinosaur costume. On the counter at the right, a small plastic skeleton hand sits on a stand beside the register, frozen mid-wave, and a pile of folded paper bags printed with orange pumpkins waits beside a roll of receipt paper. Behind the counter, partly hidden, a supplier's calendar hangs on the wall with October's page showing a photograph of a grinning jack-o'-lantern, the last day of the month circled in black marker. The shop's front door, at the far left beyond the window, has a small brass bell above it and a cardboard sign hanging on its glass, turned so the side facing into the shop reads "CLOSED". A tall standing fan at the back of the shop slowly turns, stirring the garlands and making the paper skeleton sway, and a few strands of fake cobweb drift loose from the window display. Near the base of the mirror, just inside the bottom of the frame, a wooden shelf holds a jumble of accessories: plastic tiaras, a pair of red devil horns on a headband, a skull-shaped candle and a small plastic pumpkin pail full of loose fake fingernails. The cherub at the top of the mirror frame seems to look down at her with a cracked, chipped smile, and a cobweb stretches from its wing to the corner of the frame. The fluorescent light catches the fine texture of everything: the latex wrinkles of the masks, the shiny polyester of the hat, the pilled wool of her jacket, the cracked leather sleeves and the grain of the old wood under the flaking gold. The air looks slightly hazy with dust caught in the light, and tiny flecks of glitter float near the floor where the fan moves the air. Because the camera looks out through the back of the old mirror glass, the image is slightly softened and darkened toward its edges, with faint grey foxing spots floating near the frame and a subtle warm tint from the aged silvering. In the center of the frame, around her face, the view is clear and sharp. The picture reads in clear layers: the gilded frame and foxed glass at the edges; her face and hands in sharp focus in the center; the crowded racks and the gorilla mannequin in the middle distance; and the wall of masks behind her filling the top half of the frame. The camera sits at her eye level, about an arm's length from her face, so she fills the lower center of the frame from the waist up, and the 35mm lens keeps the wall of masks readable behind her while it softens slightly with distance. Across the frame, colors repeat and echo: the sickly fluorescent green-white; the purple of the neon, her hat band and her sunglasses; the orange of the price tag, the laces, the boa and the candy corn; the faded green of her varsity jacket; the flaking gold of the frame; and the pale greys, greens and pinks of the masks. Small signs of the season are everywhere in the shop: a bowl of mini chocolate bars on the counter with a handwritten card reading "TAKE ONE", plastic spiders stuck to the edge of the mirror frame with blobs of putty, a strand of orange fairy lights wrapped around the costume rack, and a cardboard cutout of a cartoon witch on a broom propped against the wall beside the wigs. The paper skeleton overhead throws a faint moving shadow across the masks, and the purple neon buzzes in the window. Behind her left shoulder, the mask with real eyes catches a thin line of fluorescent light across its wet pupils, the only living glint on the whole wall. The photograph has the look of Fujifilm Superia 400 under fluorescent light: a green cast, punchy but slightly muddy colors, gritty grain in the shadows, a soft vignette and the feel of a candid snapshot. It is the last night before Halloween, and the shop is about to close. She has run in for a last-minute costume and is trying on hats, enjoying herself, while one of the masks on the wall watches her. The scene is funny, cluttered and quietly creepy.