The Boundary Is Part of the Image

Every reflection begins with an edge, even when that edge is difficult to see. A car mirror announces its limit with a thick curved frame, while calm water may mark the transition with only a dark horizontal line. These boundaries determine what enters the doubled space and what remains outside it. They also change how scale is understood: a highway can fit inside a small mirror, and a distant tree can extend across half a landscape through its inverted image. Looking at the boundary first reveals that a reflection is never simply a copy. It is a selected view shaped by the size, angle, position, and material of the surface that returns the light.