Have you missed me? I’m just coming to the end of my vacation in gorgeous sunny Boca Raton, Florida. Promise I’ll be back on a more regular writing schedule when I’m home from paradise. *sigh*
Anyhow, many of you ladies have seen the eye photos I take for my clients on Facebook, and wondered what kind of fancy camera I have that takes them so clearly. Happily for you, I have no such thing. A few years ago, I discovered this amazing product, tiny little lenses that attach to your iPhone or Android phone via a stick-on magnetic ring around the built-in lens (before you add to cart, make sure you’ve got the wide/macro lens). At the time, I just kind of putzed around pointing it at things and then got bored, not really knowing what to do with it. However, once I became a Color Analyst, I remembered the little gizmo and it occurred to me it might be a cheaper alternative to a new fancy camera with a macro lens. With a bit of practice, it has produced results beyond my wildest expectations.
Before you run off into the sunset with your new $20 magical eye picture taking gizmo, allow me to give you a few pointers. First, be sure you screw off the wide angle lens. It’s a combo lens and the remaining, very tiny piece underneath is indeed the macro lens. Later, you can screw the wide angle back on to take pictures of your house that make it look huge, but for now we want to see those gorgeous peepers.
Once you’ve got the magnetic ring on your phone and just the macro lens attached to the ring, you are going to want to go somewhere where you can face into a lot of light. Oh, and it will really help if you can commandeer the help of a friend, or in a pinch, a very confused husband or teenager. I have my clients wheel right up to one of my full spectrum lamps inside a soft box. Outside in bright sunshine, or facing into a bright lamp might be good ideas. Once you’ve got plenty of light, your assistant is going to need to get the camera really uncomfortably close to your eye, but don’t worry they don’t need to touch it. It’s best, however, if you can get close enough that the person taking the photo is able to get the lens to focus on your iris rather than your eyelashes, as it is want to do. On the iPhone, you can use your finger to choose where the focal point is, which is helpful as well (just be really careful not to poke your eye, PLEASE).
One last thing, which I’m not sure will be helpful for those with Android phones or possibly even older iPhones, but I do it so, full disclosure. At time of writing, I use an iPhone 5S when I take these photos. There are a few built in filters in the default camera app, and I use one of them, called “chrome” when I take these pictures. You can access these by clicking the three overlapping circles in the lower right-hand corner of the camera screen. The reason why I use this filter, is because it lightens the shot quite a bit, though it does also saturate it slightly. I don’t find the color in the eye pictures comes out much different than reality, however, and the lightness makes the structure of the eye, something I like to see and study, quite apparent. It should go with out saying that you can, of course, play around with it however you see fit.
Well, that’s all my secrets. Good luck capturing the magical supernova inside of YOUR eye! (and back to the lounge chair with me… 😉 )
Great information. Thank you.
Rachel,Thx so much for sharing. You take amazing eye photos. I am going to get one of those little gadgets tomorrow!
Make sure to post your results! 😉
My pleasure, Pat!
One of the reasons I keep insisting on being a probable winter is the obvious contrast in my eyes between the color and the outer ring (like the TW above).
Rachel, are you seeing patterns between eyes and seasons?
Beautiful photos, gorgeous eyes.
I do, yes. The dark rim = winter thing, that’s probably one of the less reliable ones. Some winters don’t have it, some non-winters do. Perhaps it is easily passed as a gene without the rest of the Winter coloring. Other identifying characteristics like a ring of sunshine around the iris in all five Spring types, and spokes that go all the way to the edges of the iris in the Winter types seem more reliable, but you never really know unless you’ve confirmed it with the drapes.
I caution anyone against using eye patterns as a diagnostic. I do it to guess with celebrities, because I will never drape them (well, never say never, but you get my drift). With my clients, I try not to speculate and for that reason take my eye pictures at the end of the appointment.