how do you revese the direction of an axis on a sub plot

I have a sub plot of an image and I want to set the direction of the y axis. I can do this for an image that is not a sub plot. I suspect that it has something to do with selecting/setting the current axis but I haven't been able to figure out how to do it. I've tried any number of way to set the current axis, set the figure handle etc.. Nothing works.

image_subplot=subplot('Position',[0.10, 0.35, 0.80, 0.60])

set(parent_figure_handle, 'currentaxes', image_subplot)

set(gca,'YDir','normal')

imagesc(image)

Answer 1

[DGM]

Set the properties after the call to imagesc(), otherwise they get reset

A = imread('cameraman.tif');

subplot(1,2,1)
imagesc(A)
axis equal
axis tight

subplot(1,2,2)
imagesc(A)
axis equal
axis tight
set(gca,'ydir','normal')