Photographing glasses and people behind them :)

[Lisard]

My friend is a eye doctor and just opened her private practice. She is looking to create a brochure with "before/after" photos of people with ugly/beautiful glasses.
She asked me to do the job. At least to try. :)
I am not getting paid and she doesn't want to splurge on the experienced professional.
So here come questions:
What's a best way to do such photographs? How to avoid glare on glasses? What is a best way to photograph people with glases? Any good reads about this?
I don't have studio and lighting and would have to use available light (outdoors).
Do you think this is impossible task for the beginner?

[Andy_T]

Taking a circular polarizing filter to the shoot would come to mind....

Using indirect flash would be another point.

Best regards,
Andy

[Lagged2Death]

As an inexperienced photographer but an old hand at wearing glasses, I swear that most of the people in the glasses sales brochures are wearing empty frames - no lenses, thus no glare. Also no fingerprints, smudges, eyelashes, or flakes of skin to get caught on the lenses. Also no weird optical distortion effects to worry about.

If your goal is to showcase the stylish nature of the "after" frames, I guess this is sort of a legit tactic. It's definitely going to be the easiest way to handle the problems. And in any case I guess it's no more dishonest than the fake steam, ice cubes, etc. so common in other product photography.

[Lisard]

Thanks so much for the tip!!! I will definately ask her to remove lenses from glasses. How could I be so naive! :roll: 8)

[Lagged2Death]

Hmm. Naturally, after my post is when my reservations occur to me.

Some glasses, classified as "rimless," don't have a frame that goes all the way around the lenses. These might not look much like glasses - and some may not even hold together at all - without the lenses in place. So the "empty frames" method won't help there.

And some glasses, of course, are tinted. Obviously empty frames won't look anything like tinted lenses.

So some techniques to reduce glare (or to co-opt it and make it part of your style) may still be valuable, even if you can remove the lenses when it's an option. Andy's tips (polarizers, care with the direction of the flash) sound like a good starting point to me, too.

[Tom W]

Here's a couple of ideas:

Get your light up high, or better yet, use bounce flash (with an index card taped to the back of the flash unit to reflect just a little light to the subject's eyes).

Find a neutral backdrop - draperies, or whatever - that won't attract attention from the subject. You may need to experiment a little bit.

[CoolToolGuy]

I have no experience at this particular task, but a light tent, softbox or other large reflector that avoids having a single point as the light source may help.

[toglenn]

It's very difficult to control eye glass light reflections. They are a lot like Radar signals as they are reflected back from the source. If Steath glasses were available, a photographers life would be simpler but as far as I know there's no such thing. If you keep in mind where the light sources are, sometimes having the subject elevate or lower their head slightly tends to redirect the reflections.

But, in many cases you just have to retouch them out with a Clone tool, which is pretty easy if the eye ball is clear of reflections.

toglenn

[De Paula]

You can remove the lens...