How To Prevent Bright Ears In Camera So You Don't Have To Worry About It In Post Production

Have you ever noticed how a person’s ears sometimes glow in portraits when they are backlit? Because ears are more transparent than the rest of our bodies, they tend to catch and diffuse any light that is shining through them, kinda like the way a softbox works. To that end, you can imagine how silly it would look if the subject of a portrait had two tiny, glowing softboxes on each side of their head. You can see why glowing ears just aren’t that desirable in portraits. If you’ve ever spent time in Photoshop trying to fix it, you’ll be grateful for this little tips from professional photographer, Glyn Dewis.

The little hack isn’t technically done “in camera”, but it’s definitely along those lines and is an excellent tool to know about. And, if you have a roll of gaffers tape laying around, you won’t need to purchase any new equipment. Simply grab a little piece of the tape and stick it behind the subject’s ears before you start shooting. It will block out light from shining through and save you some aggravation during post production. Just be careful so you don’t press it on to hard or get their hair in it for obvious reasons.

It seems like black electrical tape may also work well and not be so sticky, but I haven’t personally tried it out yet. If the skin was a little oily, there might be some difficulty getting it to stick at all. If you do some experimenting, be sure to leave us a comment below and share your findings.

In the interim, check out Dewis’ video, here:

[ via PetaPixel ]

Paul

Or, I dunno….you could learn to use lighting properly. It’s “tips” like this that give Professional photographers a peptic ulcer.
- Alex_L_H
  
  Everyone was new once. you weren’t born a professional photographer.
  Instead of snark, why not bestow the benefit of your experience? how is this problem avoided “professionally”?
  
  As a not quite aside, the “gaffers” tape nickname is for the people who were in charge of the lighting in theatres.
- Lyle
  
  And that “properly” would be how?
- Tony 1
  
  Your comment represents the ever so tired cliché of the anal, pixel peeping photographer. Your a legend in your own mind.
Teco Pablo Salto-Weis

I’m a pro photographer myself, and sometimes you simply don’t have the time to do things “the right way”, and you do need to find a solution to little problems like this. In short, if you have the time, then go ahead and light properly and feel proud, if not, use gaffer tape, nobody will know the difference in the final photos.