Project description
Ein Schaufenster mit einem Spiegel, der die Skyline von Zürich spiegelt, darunter ein Zettel mit dem Titel 'Die Zünfte, der Böögg und ganz Zürich'.

What if a city shows itself in its windows?

Mirror of the City is an ongoing series of photographs made in shop and restaurant windows of cities across Europe. Inside, a room glows quietly with its own life. Outside, the street moves without pausing. Between them, only the glass and its lettering — a membrane where both worlds lean into each other and merge, for a moment, into the single pulse of the city. Architecture, commerce, strangers mid-stride, the sky — all collapsed into a single frame.

The right moment arrives when the layers align: when a passing figure echoes something in the display, when the cathedral appears above the luxury goods, when the city accidentally captions itself. These are not staged images. They are found ones — the result of walking slowly, looking obliquely, and waiting for the street to compose itself.

Zurich, Venice, Cologne — and next Milano: the series is structured as an expanding atlas, each city a new chapter, each chapter with its own palette, its own texture, its own light. But the question underneath every image is the same: what does a city reveal about itself when it doesn't know it's being watched?

Blick durch eine reflektierende Glasscheibe auf eine Gruppen von Menschen und eine Stadt mit alten und modernen Gebäuden unter hellem Himmel. 
About the photograph

Stéphane Mingot is a Swiss photographer working across conceptual portraiture, street photography, and editorial commissions. His corporate and editorial work has appeared in publications including Forum (Alfred Müller) and Coffee Moments (Lyreco), alongside portrait and brand photography for a range of clients.

His earlier personal project, Incognito — behind the mask, explored perception and identity during the COVID-19 pandemic through portraits made with and without masks; the project was exhibited at photo-schweiz and covered by Swiss media, with proceeds supporting families affected by the crisis through Glückskette.

Mirror of the City marks a shift from portraiture to the urban environment itself — trading the human face for the face of the city, found in the windows of the shops and streets it walks through. What draws him to reflections is what they do to the familiar. Zürich, Cologne, Venice — cities he knows — become familiar and strange as layered in glass.

Based in Zurich, Switzerland. Available for exhibitions, commissions, and print inquiries.