Tip : one of the rules you HAVE to know for shooting glasses

Often people ask me how I get glasses to not show my lights.
I’ve shot several campaigns for opticians and they always asked me if they could leave the glasses in and where a bit surprised that I replied “but of course, otherwise I’m shooting frames not glasses”. Well in essence you are shooting frames… but you know what I mean, without glasses in the frame it just looks weird.

So what is the trick?
Well it’s actually incredibly simple.
Always remember that the angle of incidence is the angle of reflection.
This means that if you visualize your light path you have to make sure that you are not shooting in the same line as your light path because than you will see the reflection.

In reality this often means that I place my lights slightly higher and aim it more down minimizing the chance on reflection. When you place them correctly you can even let your model look up like the image on top.

So remember the golden rule…. Angle of reflection is angle of incidence.
It’s a really important one.