Pieces of the Picture

Glass glare in eye glasses is one of the most common problems you’ll encounter when photographing subjects in a studio setting. I’ll give you ten quick tips on how to remove glass glare from your subjects glasses before you photograph them. There are ways after the fact, but in my opinion, this is one area that is possible to fix before hand and is a lot more work after the fact. The first thing to note is that with modeling lights, you can see where the light will fall on the subjects’ eye glasses and therefore you can see before you take the photo if there will be a reflection in the eyes.

The most important thing to do in removing glare before hand is to do each of the following tips slightly enough to make them unnoticeable that you took corrective measures. Subtlety is the key here. If you over do any of these and it is noticeable, then you will have a worse problem than if you would have just left the glare in the glasses. Also if leaving some glare in the glasses to fix after the fact, it is important to remember to leave the actual eyeball untouched by glass glare. It is too difficult to correct once the eye has been ruined by glass glare. There are ways to fix it in that case, but it is very time consuming and does not look as good if you would just have gotten it right in the first place. The following are ten quick tips to try to removing glass glare before you press the shutter.

1. Remove the lenses all together. Then you certainly will not have an issue with glass glare.

2. Have your subject lower their chin slightly. This will bring the lenses down a bit and bring the reflection of the lights higher and hopefully even out of the lens altogether.

3. Raise the level of your camera slightly. This will have the same effect essentially of step two.

4. Have your subject loosen the glasses off their ears ever so slightly. This will do the same thing as having your subject lower their chin. It will point the lenses down a touch and not require the subject moving their head. Caution on this tip however. If the subject has short hair or is bald, any amount of this step practically will show. Women or subjects with more hair will be able to pull this one off better in that they will have hair to cover the part of the glasses that rests on the tops of the earlobes.

5. Move the lights higher. You don’t want to go too much higher because it will change dramatically the angle of the light and possibly be unnappealing but sometimes just a little raise to the fill light or even main light will help to alleviate the glass glare.

6. Try moving the lights out away just a bit. Keep them the same distance from the subject in order not to affect exposure, but just move them in a half circle away from the subject. This could fix the glare reflection in the glasses in that they will be out of the area where they are reflecting.

7. Turn the subjects head to the right or left. This sometimes will move the subject’s glasses away from the reflection of the main or fill light that is causing the area of reflection in their glasses.

8. Use a polorizing filter. I have never tried this but have heard it mentioned as a method that works. Of course you have to meter for the filter because depending on the filter it will affect you by several stops.

9. Have the subject lean out towards you at their waist. Have them sit up straight but still lean out towards you. This will in turn again cause their glasses to point downward enough to cause the reflection to disappear.

10. Finally, if it’s the fill light that is causing reflective problems, you could always try turning off the fill light altogether. This may not be an option depending on the lighting you are trying to acheive, but sometimes it is an option.

When working in a studio situation, you will encounter this problem. The trick is knowing how to deal with it so that you flatter your subject and get rid of the glare without making it obvious that you were trying to “fix” the problem.