Building on her With Camera series (2001-2007), which marked the first time Semmel purposefully poses in front of the mirror, Look Back (2021) depicts the camera outside of the composition and alludes to its presence through the use of cropping and an outstretched arm held outside the frame. One of the more abstracted iterations of this series, Look Back displays the reflected body as a discrete—even obscured—ultimately questioning the idea of recognition as a matter of perspective. The unfamiliarity between the painted figure and its reflection is then held in conflict with the deep familiarity Semmel has with her own body as it's endlessly, exclusively rendered across most of her compositions. As she explains, "While my work developed through series, the connecting thread across decades is a single perspective: being inside the experience of femaleness and taking possession of it culturally. I have used both the mirror and the camera as strategies to destabilize the point of view (who is looking at whom), and to engage the viewer as a participant." While her previous use of the camera was to document herself from her perspective, Look Back marks an occasion whereby Semmel dislocates this process.