The title is from Sylvia Plath's poem Mirror, suggested by the model.
Going for harsh shadows without necessarily having harsh highlights - a single wireless flash head off to the right, around waist height for the model, pointing up slightly. Lots of black cloth for the background and covering her legs (she was kneeling). Going for background separation, wanted it to look as if she was floating, maybe in dark water. Was going for a mysterious feel without being threatening and pushing away the viewer but without any cheese either.
Wasn't sure about the cat necklace at first, the model was wearing it before the shoot, but i decided to keep it - it adds a bit more mystery and mood, and i loved the shadow it made.
Editing: channel mixer to desaturate with a green filter effect, tone curve to boost the brightness of the midtones a bit without blowing out highlights, create a stronger gradation between light and dark. Converted to quadtone with pantone process black, cool gray 10, cool gray 1 and warm gray 3 all in upward bending curves of slightly different depth. Some cloning to get out the very dark black bits below the mirror (folds in the cloth showing up) and a couple of stray hairs and bits of dust. Some dodging around the cat to make its highlight and eyes a little brighter. Resize, tiny tiny sharpen.
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Hey...hope you do well with this. I used the same poem for my "Reflections" challenge and it did very badly. I put 3 days of shooting into it and came away with an "early newbie" picture. Very difficult to line up that reflection I know!!! The darkness of this is very Sylvia though.
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