3 Easy Tips on How to Avoid Glasses Glare

If you have ever photographed someone with glasses, you have probably run into the issue of glasses glare. The question of how to avoid glare in glasses is a common one, so today we have some simple and easy to follow tips for you! When we are photographing people with glasses, it can take a little extra attention to capture photographs without a glare from the sun reflecting in their lenses, but it can be done!

Avoiding glasses glare is all about the way your light source is hitting your subject’s glasses. Once you understand that, it is simple to find a few ways to reduce or diminish the problematic glare. Here are a few tips:

1. Watch Your Angles

Just as we watch the light when looking for catch lights in your subject’s eyes, we must also watch the light closely when photographing people wearing glasses. Just as the eyes will reflect the light source shining on them, the lenses of glasses will do so as well. Unfortunately, the glare that results from this reflection on glasses isn’t nearly as appealing as catch lights!

When your subject is looking towards light source (often the sky), it causes glare on their lenses. To avoid this, you can make small adjustments in the angle you are shooting from to eliminate or lessen the distracting glare. Sometimes, shuffling your feet just a little bit to one side or the other will be enough to change the angle and reduce the glare.

You can also have your subject adjust the angle of their head slightly until the glare is gone. You can see how this works in the example below. In the first image, the subject had his face angled right into the light source (the setting sun). By asking him to adjust his angle by dropping his chin and turning his head more directly towards me, I was able to eliminate the glare.

In this second example, you can see the glare in the first image. By asking the subject to lower his chin slightly, I was able to get rid of the glare completely.

2. Tilt the Glasses

Another way to reduce glare on glasses to physically adjust the position of the glasses themselves. By tilting the back end of the ear piece up just slightly, the plane of the glasses is shifted and can be a great way to keep the light source from reflecting in the lenses. Again, remember that glare in glasses is all about the light. Making minor adjustments, in this case, to the angle of the reflective surface, can really help. Just look at this example below. The earpieces have been lifted slightly, shifting the plane of the lenses so that the light no longer reflects directly off of them.

3. Put the Light Behind Them

You can also bypass lens glare from glasses by utilizing backlighting in your photos. By placing the light source behind your subject, you are removing the main source of glare. In this photo, I simply turned my subject around 180 degrees so that the setting sun was behind him.

This backlighting strategy worked perfectly when photographing this family full of glasses-wearers. The sun was setting just in the right corner of the frame, behind them. Take a close look – not a single glare.

Lens glare can be a little tricky, and if you aren’t careful, you could end up spending a lot of time in Photoshop trying to fix glare on glasses. But you know how to avoid glasses glare in photos with just a little bit of extra attention and time to get it right. By following these 3 easy tips, you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle!