Photographer Ben Shirk isn’t afraid of a challenge. In fact, when considering what to shoot for this year’s print competitions, a friend dared him to created an award-winning photograph in-camera, rather than relying on his advanced Photoshop skills for creative editing.

The result: Mirror Mirror, pictured at left, which won the Sunset Print Award during the Professional Photographers of Iowa’s annual competition earlier this year.

“It took a great deal of planning and preciseness to get it correct,” Shirk says. “I had to get the wig, the eyelashes, the lighting, everything just perfect. It probably took me 15 hours to go out and get everything and get it all ready. If I’d have done it in Photoshop, I could have done it in an hour.”