It's All In the Eyes

I think it was the late, great, British actor, Sir Laurence Olivier, who said, "It's all in the eyes." Of course, Olivier was talking about acting. But he could just as easily have been speaking of models and modeling and, because shooters are the documentarians of such people, photographers.

Sure, when it comes to pretty-girl glamour, tits and ass are important. But the soul of an image are the subject's eyes-- and, yeah, even T&A images have soul.

Watch an MUA at work. What, usually, do they spend most of their time working on? The model's eyes. When shooting, what is your main point of focus? Most often and almost always, the model's eyes.

I hate sounding corny; stating the obvious by quoting an old adage like, The eyes are the windows to the soul, but, well, it's true.

The biggest hunk of emotion a model will convey, in most images, will be transmitted through her eyes. Whether it's happiness, sadness, fear, aggression, playfulness, coyness, raw sexual hunger, whatever the emotion, it's going to mostly be played out through her eyes. Eyes that seem lifeless or void of emotion--I call them dead eyes--don't usually make for dynamic images.



Personally, I'm a big fan of catchlights. I try my best to provide catchlights in the model's eyes. I don't use a ringlight so I'm not always guaranteed to catch those catchlights but that's okay. Images without catchlights can still have impact, especially when attempting to convey a darker feeling in the image. Even if you're not going for that dark and mysterioso look, the lack of catchlights doesn't necessarilly kill an image. Don't beat yourself up if you capture a smokin' hot image but, for whatever reason, you didn't catch those catchlights. Most likely, your smokin' hot image is still smokin' hot!

When I post-process an image, I often spend more time working on and around the model's eyes than anywhere else. I do this because, with many images, that's the first place the viewer's eyes will be drawn. Since first impressions are important, I don't want viewers turned away from the image because the model's eyes just aren't happening.

If you spend time on the photo-forums, you'll see that an awful lot of less-than-positive critiques focus on the model's eyes, that is, how the eyes were shot and processed. Conversely, nicely photographed and processed eyes often elicit positive responses.

Here's a couple of tips: If your mainlight is set up high and your model's face isn't angled up towards it, to some degree, you might not capture catchlights. In this case, you might consider bouncing some light off the mainlight (or another light) with a small reflector or piece of foamcore from a position that will reflect in the model's eyes. If you're shooting outside, with the sun behind the model, fill-flash and/or a reflector will not only provide fill, but will usually produce catchlights. If you're using a reflector and you bounce some light in from below, you'll also get rid of (or reduce) any dark circles or bags that might be under the model's eyes.

The models with eyes accompanying this post are... uhh... I forget who the first one was in that very over-processed image at the top. I don't feel like hunting through my archives for her name right now, so I'll just refer to her--like Elvis crooned in that old song--the girl with Spanish Eyes. The next two are Jasmine and Herry, in that order, from top to bottom.