Quick tip – How to light subjects with glasses for photos or video

We’ve written about how to avoid glare on glasses here on DIYP before. It’s a topic that many of us face at some point or another, whether it be for photography or video reasons. Photographer Joe Edelman has shared some excellent tips in the past on how we can avoid glare and reflection in glasses when photographing others, but what about when filming yourself?

While he doesn’t go quite as in-depth into the physics of it the way Joe did, this video from Kevin The Basic Filmmaker explains the basic problem and how we can quickly and easily solve the issue of reflection in glasses when filming ourselves or shooting video of others talking directly to the camera.

The problem is an obvious one for anybody who wears glasses and has tried to film themselves or another wearer of spectacles when faced square on to the camera. But the solution is actually quite simple. Move the lights further out to the side a little bit and move them up a little bit. If it’s not enough, move them out and up a little bit more.

Most of the time, your lights will still be in a good enough position to get decent light on your subjects, but the reflection in the glasses will be gone, allowing the camera to see your subject’s eyes. And while you won’t get that catchlight as close to the centre as you might normally like it, you’ll still be able to get some catchlights in the eyes, as you can see from Kevin’s own face in the video.

A handy quick tip, and one to remember if you’re getting ready to film yourself or others wearing glasses.