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Making a portrait with glasses
Explore frames, reflections, and small shared choices with a portrait partner who wears glasses.
Glasses can contribute lines, color, reflections, and a familiar gesture to a portrait. Begin with what your portrait partner enjoys about wearing them. A comfortable conversation gives you a starting point for exploring how the frames and face share the picture.
Let the glasses belong in the portrait
Portrait with dark-framed glasses · Photograph: Yenra
A hand gesture with glasses · Photograph: Yenra
In the first portrait, dark frames sit across the eyes and reflections appear within the lenses. In the closer photograph, a hand accompanies glasses lowered below the eyes. Follow the line of the frames in each picture, then notice the surrounding hair, the gaze, and the space around the face.
These are two different portrait moments. Framing, expression, gaze, and hand position vary together. You can enjoy the relationship in each without choosing one as a correction of the other. A gesture with the glasses is one possibility when your partner finds it comfortable and enjoyable.
Explore a small change together
Make a starting photograph with your partner wearing their glasses as they normally would. Look together at where the frames sit in the picture. If you both want to try another view, choose one small change: your camera position, the direction of the face, or a hand gesture your partner suggests.
Notice what changes in the lenses as well as around them. Your partner can keep their glasses comfortably in place throughout. Use the comparison to discover what you both enjoy, and let their comfort guide the pace.
Notice what the lenses add
Portrait with reflective tinted glasses · Photograph: Yenra
The tinted lenses in this portrait contain small reflections of buildings, trees, and the surrounding space. They give the face a second area to explore. The dark bow tie and softly rendered hand add other shapes nearby.
Clear, tinted, and reflective lenses offer different possibilities. You might enjoy seeing the eyes through a reflection, following the outline of a frame, or including a little of the setting in the lenses. Try a view, talk about it together, and keep a note of the choice you would like to explore again.
Look back with curiosity.
- How do the frames relate to the face and picture edges?
- What do reflections or tinted lenses add to the photograph?
- Which small change feels comfortable and interesting to your partner?
Keep exploring
Exploring gaze in a portrait · Exploring hand gestures in a portrait · Noticing reflections in a photograph · Choosing portraits together
Explore the complete galleries: Tigercon 2012 · Tigercon 2014 · All Tigercon years.