THE REAL QUESTION ON HEADSHOTS WITH GLASSES
Hey everyone, its Laura Pearman, and this is another Laura Pearman vlog.
Thanks very much to Nancy Radford this week who submitted her question. Nancy is a professional mediator she works with people in their relationships and she also goes into the workplace to sort out any work cultures that aren’t quite working so harmoniously, I know from when I’ve had a lot of part-time jobs in the past, I’ve worked in some places that didn’t work so harmoniously, so, Nancy, I am going to hook you up with some good links after this girlfriend. Let’s get into your question Nancy!
Nancy asks about headshots with glasses:
Nancy submitted this question to me through Linkedin. You can find her profile by clicking on the link right here.
THE REAL ANSWER ON HEADSHOTS WITH GLASSES
This is a really good question, Nancy. I know when I’ve worked with people in headshots and then way back when I used to do weddings and stuff like that, sometimes when you’re working with people who are glasses, wearers, they have like a moment of panic because they are glasses wearer’s and I think this comes from when you’re doing selfies or when you’re taking pictures with friends and family, you get a lot of light reflections where the light bounces directly onto your glasses so you’ve got a face with two big light bouncing things instead of your eyes.
MY FIRST TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
This always used to happen a lot when we were all shooting on film when films were like film compact cameras and then you go to the chemist, get your pictures back and you’d be devastated that your
pictures didn’t come out right. So yeah, when you’re studying photography you learn all about light refraction and light reflection so light reflection is when the light bounces like this directly light refraction are when the light bounces like this in a different angle.
THEN MY SECOND TRIP
Everyone can probably remember playing around with prisms in school. That’s light refraction!
So to see the light bouncing, you’d hold it up to the light and you can see something that looks like a cool rainbow, that’s it bouncing.
You with me? Cool!
WHY YOU NEED TO GO WITH A PRO EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. HEADSHOTS WITH GLASSES
So yeah, if you’re working with a good professional photographer we’ve spent HOURS learning all about this. We’ve spent hours, or we should have, reading all about this, learning the principles of this, learning how to work with the sunlight in a natural way, with reflectors outdoors. Then what you have to do when you introduce artificial light in a studio scenario, and then my favourite, when you introduce artificial light outdoors. So if you look at any high-fashion magazine, go into your nearest Newsagents, and just take a little flick through Vogue something like that. Chances are you will be looking at an outdoor shoot where additional artificial lighting is used because this is where you get some really cool effects and a dramatic aesthetic.
I personally think that you are never able to fully master light because you can never totally predict what’s going to happen. It’s a little bit like yoga, you’re never going to master it and that’s why I love it so much personally.
YOU CAN’T JUST NOT WEAR THE GLASSES
Anyway, let’s move back towards the glasses topic.
When you’re wearing your glasses and I think it’s again like I always say, this is not your problem, this is your photographer’s problem if your photographer starts making noises that it is a problem that you wear glasses you need to walk away from that photographer. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They need to become more skilled. It shouldn’t be a problem, they just need to accommodate the fact that you wear glasses. You’re not going to not wear your glasses if you’re a full-time glasses wearer, you’re going to feel naked that you don’t have your glasses on your face.
So you’ve gotta wear your glasses!
THE THIRD TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE – SORRY, IT JUST WENT A BIT NOSTALGIC THIS WEEK
Yep, let’s move on to the light reactive glasses, this sparked off a childhood memory for me.
When I was about six years old.
Can anyone else remember the stranger-danger video? So when I was six, the TV at school was massive and it had to be wheeled into the room by like two or three teachers. I’m not that
old, but that’s how big the telly was in our school.
They had to wheel it in and we all had to sit on a carpeted section in the school, and it was like a really big occasion when the telly got
brought out and we had to watch the Northumbria Police issued Stranger Danger video.
This thing was harrowing right!
GLASSES & STRANGER DANGER CONNECTION
Basically, they told us that if a man -it was always going to be a man- approached you, and he was a stranger, he was going to be hiding the colour of his eyes.
This was so that when the police eventually caught up to you and the stranger, you weren’t going to be able to tell the policeman what colour his irises were. So what he was going to do was he was going to wear these vintage knockoffs Ray-Bans, and they were going to be mirrored on the covers…
Does anyone remember these as well from the eighties? They were all the rage.
MIRRORS ARE THE SCARIEST
Mirror fronted sunglasses! He would be wearing those. He would probably ask you if you wanted to see some puppies that he had just gotten and they would be in his car boot and it would all be a big lie.
They told you that you would go to the boot of the car, and you would just look into the boot of the car and he would kick you into the boot of the car and then he would drive away and you would
never see your mum or dad ever again!
Well, obviously I was terrified!
I spent the next two years walking around being terrified whenever I saw a guy with mirror fronted sunglasses on. It was what 1980 something and everyone had these damn sunglasses on because they were all the rage.
So yeah that’s what memory that brought back for me Nancy, thanks very much!
THE LIGHT RE-ACTIVE GLASSES WEARER
Light-reactive glasses are the ones where the opticians have added an extra technology. When you go outside they turn into sunglasses on your prescription and then when you come back in they’re supposed to go fully clear again. But, am I right in thinking that the technology is not that great and sometimes they have a slight shady tint on them?
Maybe when people see these glasses indoors they might want to know why your glasses aren’t clear?
Maybe we could do the same image of you with fully clear glasses fully clear lenses in your frames and then the slightly shady ones?
Or, we could look to maybe pull the shade out in Photoshop afterwards and just see how people react to them lots of “light reactive” and then how people are “reacting” to these glasses.
TEST THE HEADSHOTS WITH GLASSES THEORY
We could do that in a Facebook advert and split test it. We could do it with a sample audience on another social media. This is the beauty of social media right now. But I think because of what you do with your business it’s all about building up trust. Slightly hiding your eyes might cause a subliminal reaction of people thinking ‘why is she hiding her eyes, what’s that about?’, ‘it’s a little bit shady’ in the literal sense. So I would say maybe stay clear away from wearing those indoors and yeah that would be my advice there.
THANKS, NANCY!
So I hope that’s answered your question. If you have any more questions about Stranger Danger, 1980s versions of mirror fronted ray-bans, or you want to talk to me about light refraction or light reflection. Let’s do that HERE.
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