It’s amazing how many business portrait photographers don’t know how to properly photograph someone who’s wearing eyeglasses. Photographers like myself, who wear prescription eyeglasses, might be more sensitive about this than photographers who don’t wear glasses.
• Frame position: The eyeglass frames should not intersect the eyes and especially not the iris or pupil. If you see a business headshot where the frames cross through an eye, you know the photographer wasn’t paying attention.
Repositioning eyeglass frames with Photoshop can often be done but it would be very time consuming. The much easier way is to simply ask the person to push up or straighten their glasses before the photo is taken.
• Lens refraction: If the subject’s head is turned too far from the camera lens axis, light can refract (bend) as it passes through an eyeglass lens. This will make the person’s face or cheek line appear broken or distorted inside their eyeglasses. Refraction is more common with thicker prescription lenses. If the photographer doesn’t correct this before the photo is made, it can often be fixed in post.
• Lens reflections: A business headshot with reflections in the eyeglasses means the photographer goofed. There’s no reason to accept a portrait with distracting reflections. A photographer should change either the pose of the subject’s head or the position of the lights to eliminate any reflections. Failing that, some reflections can be eliminated in post.
With certain lighting setups, reflections can’t be avoided. But this can be fixed with a decades-old photography compositing technique somewhat similar to the 90-year-old movie technique of “shooting a plate”. The photographer double-shoots the portrait, once with the eyeglasses and once without, and later masks in the eyes.
• Lens removal: If a photographer tells you to remove the lenses from your eyeglasses or to bring a pair of lensless frames from your optician then your photographer doesn’t know what they’re doing. Asking a subject to disassemble their expensive glasses is absurd. Any photographer who takes apart someone’s eyeglasses is accepting a ridiculous liability. Removing lenses is something they did last century. There’s no need to do this anymore.
The only time lensless frames might be necessary is, ironically, when shooting ads for eyeglasses and for high-volume shoots such as for catalogues.
• Frame shadows: Eyeglass frames should not cast a shadow over the eyes. If they do, the lighting should be changed because this can be difficult to fix in post. Of course, you could also double-shoot the portrait as mentioned earlier.
• Eyeglass frames in the mouth: If you’re thinking of doing a portrait where your subject holds their eyeglasses near their face and they bite the tip of the frames, don’t. This is very wrong for a business portrait. Putting eyeglass frames in your mouth, or any other item for that matter, implies hesitation and uncertainty. It also looks very childish.
A couple more things:
How many photographers don’t know how a man’s tie is supposed to be worn?
There are two ways to straighten a tie or tighten the knot. The first is to ask the subject to fix their tie before the picture is taken. The other way is to use Photoshop after the picture has been made. One of these is much easier than the other.
How many photographers don’t know how a woman’s necklace is supposed to be worn?
If you see that your subject’s necklace has twisted backwards then it’s your job to fix it. Failing that, you might try fixing it in post.
I just saw a full-page newspaper ad that was trying to promote a well-known organization. The advertisement had a very large portrait of a female CEO with a very obvious backward-twisted necklace. It may sound trivial but small details matter when you’re trying to create a professional image.
