Video narration
Why can the inside of a spoon make your face look large and upright, then upside down as you move farther away? The spoon hasn't changed-only your distance from its inward-curving surface. Here's the rule: rays parallel to the principal axis reflect through the focus, F. That point divides the cases. Beyond F, rays meet in front of the concave mirror, forming a real image, so your face appears inverted. A real image is where light actually gathers. Inside F, they spread instead; your eyes trace them backward, making a virtual image behind the mirror-upright and enlarged. A virtual image is only where the rays seem to come from. At F, rays leave parallel, so the image is treated as being at infinity. So why does the spoon magnify, then flip? Your distance decides where rays meet: inside F, upright and magnified; beyond F, inverted.