Q: Love your blog! You are the number one reason I am confident enough to not shoot in Auto! Now, I want to take some close up shots of my sons face and really focus on his eyes, but I keep getting a horrible glare and reflections in his eyes. I can practically see the entire house in them. How can I avoid this?
A: Thank you!! And how fun - congratulations!!! Venturing off auto is definitely a blast, but we can empathize what a nerve-wracking leap it can be at first :)
Regarding glare, is it looking to be something along the lines of this Isla wayback playback…?
These hot spots of glare show up in the eyes (and/or glasses, if worn) and definitely arise as issues when shooting indoors. Now, it’s an issue some people mind and some people don’t.
The most committed but relatively easiest way to learn how to control light is to watch how it shows up in your photos, trial and error style. (Then you’ll start looking at other photos to try and figure out how they were lit, too. Oh, hai? Just me? And Kimberly? Maybe… We *do* like a good geek-out session!)
Anyway, here, Isla was on a 45° angle to the patio door; she, the door and I made a triangle, if you will.
If you look closer (try not to be hypnotized… She does not, I repeat, does not need you to buy her a pony!) you can see where and what is showing up in the eyes. You can see the patio door to the side and the big, black circle in the the lens.
I won’t lie, I like showing up indirectly in her photos. But that big rectangle from the patio door, yes, we could have done without that. And the clutter from my kitchen? Never want that in there. And so on, and so on.
How to solve?
I’ve tried to play around with it, and the suggestions (other than “take them outside!”) I can start you off with include:
- Face your subject towards the light source, not just on an angle.
- The more plentiful the light source, the better, in terms of evening out the amount of glare/reflection seen. (ie: I *knew* we should have gotten the double back door, not just the single!)
- Move your subject closer to the light source and adjust your settings accordingly. If Isla had been closer to the door, it would have cast a more even reflection in her eyes.
- If you know you’re going to be doing a mini-photo-sesh, maybe take down some of the pictures off the wall in the area you’ll be. Or toss a white sheet over a bookcase that is trying to make a photo cameo. Etc.
- And, if you’re really patient and into it, take it into a post-processing software such as Photoshop Elements, to fine tune the eye area and edit out what you don’t want to see.
Hope that helps you get started! When I tinker with it more for extra solutions, I’ll post back, so watch here :)
xo, Tamara
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