The photo that couldn't have been taken (cont.)
- The shadow reflected in the curved visor is too straight.
Looking again at the comparison of the 3d render to the photographs, the curvature of the shadows in the reflection look similar between the two. 

But let's investigate what determines how much distortion an object appears to get in a reflection on a sphere.
We can again make a simple scene in Blender of a shiny and reflective spherical object. By placing colored rods in different areas of the scene in relation to the sphere

As we start to position rods at larger angles from sphere and the viewer the curvature of the reflection starts to increase.
The blue rods show the most amount of curvature.
Looking straight down on the same scene from above, we can see that the blue rods are positioned at an almost 90 angle from the sphere and the viewer.

If we look again at the original photograph we can see that his shadow falls in front and at a slight angle to the sphere that makes his helmet.


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