- Hey love. Today is all about finding that
beautiful light for glasses. How do you go from this, to this. Yeah. There's no reason that you
shouldn't have glorious luminous, beautiful light, without all of the glare. So I'm gonna show you how to achieve that, in both daylights scenarios and nighttime. I, oh gosh, this is like
the bane of my existence, (chuckles) keeping glasses clean. I've had glasses since the age of three. You can see from this cute
little baby picture of me, but I had these big,
sexy, beautiful glasses. And last year I left them in
my rental car in Costa Rica. So I have not replaced them because, yeah, that'd be quite an
investment for having forgot where they were in the first place. In the meantime, I've just been
like pulling this face a lot 'cause I'm never saying
it, but for all of you, beautiful folks out there with glasses, this video is for you. And if we're just meeting, hello, I'm Gia. I'm a photographer based in Portland and I love teaching this stuff. I love having people feel
confident to be able to show up on camera, in video as themselves
and feel really authentic and look good doing it. If you haven't seen this video right here, this is the primer for today. It goes over how to look good in Zoom. We talk about angles,
we talk about lighting. We talk about backgrounds. We talk about all that stuff
to really give you a firm basis on, I gotta take these off. These are not actually my glasses. I borrowed them from a friend
and they were like two times the magnification. So, hurt my eyes a
little bit at this point. Well, but we'll come back to these. Check out this video, if
you haven't seen it already, that will give you a firm
background on everything leading up to now. But I got a lot of amazing
comments from so many of you, asking, how do we do this for glasses? Because the big issue that we see, is that if you have glasses, you're gonna be dealing with glare. If you light in the way I recommend, which is a big, beautiful window. I'm gonna show you how to achieve that and what you need to
know, in order to create the perfect light for you, whether it's daylight or at nighttime. And really quickly before we dive in, I just have to say, I am
so in awe and so grateful of the last week. Like this time last week,
I had just over a thousand subscribers, I was 22% on my
way to the 4,000 watch hours. And I was just, you know, plugging along with very few people seeing my stuff. And thanks to you, I have
received hundreds of comments. That video has 200,000 views
and my subscribers have gone, from 1000 to over 6,000 and I am just... Oh and I got monetized,
which is so amazing. And I am just so, so, so grateful. I mean, you can probably relate to this. It's weird talking to the camera. It's weird putting yourself out there and it's this oddly vulnerable thing. And it's just so meaningful
to receive comments that this content really
helps and is resonated and is beneficial to you and
the likes and the shares. If you don't know about
how YouTube works, really, all of that engagement. And so anything you can offer
on this video would be amazing because all of that
engagement, house the algorithm that this video is worth watching
and then it pushes it out to all these people. So it has just been this
mind blowing, amazing journey that I am so, so, so grateful to be on. And I'm excited to make more content. So comment down below, if there's anything that you want me to make a video on. I am happy to and leave a
comment, so I know who you are. They really mean so much to me and really help supporting the channel. Okay, and then last thing,
last thing, last thing, is I gotta put my hair up
because I'm way too hot. And I was trying to be
cute for you. (chuckles) It is a bazillion
degrees in this apartment and I can't have any air or fans on, because it would make the sound horrible. So yeah, we tried it, we
tried it, curly hair problems. And now my neck is sweating. Starting where we left off
with the previous video, how to look good on Zoom,
I am facing a big window. Here's the issue, when
I put my glasses on, as you may have noticed, we see
all of this reflective stuff and the closer I get to the window, the more we start to see
all of that stuff going on, which makes it so people
can't see into our eyes, they don't take us as
seriously, all that good stuff. The first thing to know
is this thing called, angle of incidence. It's a technical photography
term, but it's pretty easy to understand once you
wrap your mind around it. Basically the angle of incidence, is the angle at which
something will reflect. And with every surface,
there's an angle out, that if you see that light
source, it's going to reflect in the lens of a mirror or your glasses. This is future editing Gia. And I just realized that,
I kind of glossed over what angle of incidence,
family of angles mean. So I'm gonna explain them now. That the angle of incidence
and the angle of reflectance are like technical terms
that both worked together, to create what are called
the family of angles. Once you understand the family of angles, then you can control glare
and make sure that nothing is reflecting no matter
what size glasses you have, or wherever you are. What we're talking about
is something called, the family of angles. And what this is, is for
any reflective surface, like let's say these are your
glasses, there's an angle. And all of these angles inside,
that are going to reflect if this is light out here,
that are gonna reflect back on the surface, creating what's
called a direct reflection. Let's pretend these are your glasses. And this is the big window,
that I suggest you sit out in front of. What typically happens is
that, with this window, you have light coming in at
all these different directions. But because that is sitting
solidly within these family of angles, all of this light
that's hitting in there, is going to be reflected
here and we're gonna get that gross glare that we see. What we have to do then, is
take into account the family of angles and make sure
that there's no light coming in here. So what we do is, put a
cutter card or a flag here. And what that does, is
that blocks the light. So the only thing that
would be reflected in here, is darkness, which means that
nothing is reflected here, so we can see your eyes. Then, we make sure that
there's enough light coming in from up top, that your face which is here, is still going to get that light. You could even do it
from the bottom as well with the reflector. And then nothing is being reflected here, but you're still being evenly lit. That's what we're gonna
try to achieve today. But this is the root
reason why you get glare, glasses are here, where's
your computer screen? Well, it's typically right here. And when your computer
screen is emitting light, it's right sitting inside
the family of angles. And a lot of times that computer glare, is like a bluish color, right? So we're gonna talk about
how to get rid of this and how to light so you can
get that beautiful window light without that glare. We wanna keep that big,
beautiful front light. We just wanna take the
light outside of the angle of incidence, outside of
the angle that will reflect in our glasses. How do we do that? Well, we need to get
what are called flags, which basically just means
something that cuts the light. Thing you wanna know, is
you want them to be dark because anything that's
light is going to reflect, anything that's dark is gonna
show what's behind the glass, which is your big, beautiful
face, you know what I mean? If you are new to me, you
may not know that I believe, that you should really
work with what you have. There's no reason to try
to spend a lot of money and invest in all this
stuff, when a lot of times there are workable
solutions right around us and it's just a matter
of a little creativity. I, when I was looking
through my disastrous space, which should I show you. I'm gonna show you, because
I'm getting that little twinge of not wanting to be
judged, which to me tells me that I just need to be brave. But, so I'm gonna show you. I have some serious
clutter going on right now. What's behind me, it's
just a disaster, yeah. And then we go into the kitchen area, this is all the stuff I
moved to try to create this clean, like kind
of set moment that feels like I have my life together. And then this is all the
stuff that's just, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to adult, I'm
trying to get my life together, but I've had a shoot this week
and so I had a lot going on and it's just not my super power. So when I get stressed,
it's the first thing that that goes, it's the order. But sometimes, clutter
actually comes in handy and recently I deconstructed a desk that I'd had for a long time
and I just haven't yet gotten rid of these big panels that
were a part of the desk. And I thought to myself,
hey, this is dark, it's big, let's use this to cut the light. Going to slide these
back here and make sure they're going all the way to the edge. And I have one more, have two more. Because having a wide window
is definitely what you want, which means you have to be
able to cover everything, to cut down that light enough. So I have these big two
pieces, which is perfect. But I have this little
bit of area right here that we still need to take care of. And I found this little (indistinct), which is not quite big enough, but might get us almost all the way there. If we look at what we have,
if I bring my glasses down, you can see I've cut out all the light, that's exactly in front of
me so I can move my face all this way, all down
and you just see my face. Now, if I angle up high, we're
still gonna see this light at the top of the window. Because that's actually the
light that's lighting my face. But if I keep my head in this zone, you're just really seeing,
you just really seeing my eyes without seeing all of, which
they actually look bigger because of this magnification, right? If I wanted to do it so I
could raise my head even up higher, I could just,
all I would have to do, is just build up a little bit more. And you could do hardboard,
you could use anything that's just going to cut the light. I don't really have anything right now. And I feel good with this,
because I can stay in this range, if I hit my head up a little
bit, I know that glare is gonna be there and I
know I can take it down if I want to. But otherwise, most of
where I'm gonna be talking, you're not gonna be seeing
that glare on my face. The important thing to know,
is that you want to make sure that you are cutting down
the light all the way across. That's gonna give you all
of this angle in here, without any reflection. A lot of you asked, what about
the glare from the computer? If you are using this big natural light, the light from your computer,
you're not gonna get that green or blue glare directly. Because even though it's
in the angle of incidence, it isn't bright enough
compared to you all the light that's lighting you. That's why, this would be my go to setup, if you're teaching during the day. Now let's cut to what happens at night. We're back. It's five hours later. And now we're gonna take a
look at the nighttime setup. This is that type of classic
reflection that we get from the screen. Now you'll notice, sometimes
people will have a blue color cast, a green color cast. It really depends on what
you're actually looking at. The way to get past
the computer reflection is to make it so that your
key lights, the main lights that are hitting you are
bright enough that it adjusts the exposure in the webcam
so you don't see the light coming from the screen. How are we gonna that? Is we're going to add
these two key lights, that are gonna give us that glow. I'm sitting right here. And then I have, and these
are just honestly really cheap Amazon lights. I have one, two in a soft
box right in front of me. And you can see they're
creating that big window shape evenly letting my face. Then, and again, ignore the disaster. I have this little lamp with
a daylight balanced bulb and it is just shining
onto this background and so we have a little
bit of light on that page. It's definitely optimal
unless you got glasses, then we're back to this
unattractive glasses situation. Now you can't really
see that computer glare. If you notice the part where
it's actually blacked out and darker, where you
can actually see my eye, is where the computer is
blocking the light from behind. Even though I haven't
adjusted the brightness on the computer, because these lights that are lighting me now
are so much brighter. The exposure has totally changed
to now the computer screen is showing up as dark and you
can see my eyes through it. However, we ended up
with a different problem, where now you can see the
actual lights in the background. The question you might be
asking yourself now is, how do we get rid of that glare? Well, it's the same principle,
although actually at night it's a little bit easier,
because these lights have stands and have angles. All we have to do is take them up, out of the angle of incidence. So let's do that now. (bright upbeat music) Now, if we look, I'm sitting
right here, screen is there and it's quite a bit above. Oh yeah, see, you can see my
face, you can see my eyes. But you'll notice again, if I look up, that's where you start to see them. If one of the lights stands that I have, is a really legitimate one,
so it could go up even higher. The other one sadly came with the kit and it doesn't really
have very much extension. I'm just gonna try to
angle it, so it's pointing more straight back, give
me a little bit more. So now you can see my big, beautiful face. You'll notice if I come in close, there's a tiny bit of a glare. I can reduce that, if I
take the brightness down a little bit on my screen. And then that little bit of
glare coming from the screen is gone and we are out of
breath, but in business. The last thing I wanna
show you is a ring light, because so many people
have ordered a ring light, thinking it will work
and look great for them. And if you have glasses,
let's see what we get. (bright upbeat music) Ring light. Everybody loves the idea of a ring light. And I get it in theory. I think you can use it in a
way where it looks really good, but generally it's not how people use it. I think our ring light is
great if you have a lot of fill because a ringlet can create
really weird unnatural shadows, that show all the way. Oh, actually one of the
pictures I made, yes, I'm gonna put that picture right here. You can see these ghostly shadows, right? This is why I'm not a huge
fan of the ring light, unless it's just adding
that sparkle on your face and you have a lot of fill behind. It broke down and got
this ring light, now, and I'll show you, it's just
positioned right in front of my computer screen. You can see I put it just
where you would imagine, it's not too bad, but see
how there's a little bit of like weird ghosting behind me. Normally a shadow would
come from one side, wouldn't be as orbital and weird, but that's what you get
with the ring light. So honestly, they're not my favorite, but this is what happens,
if you have glasses. And I have actually seen
people on YouTube channels and things that just have full
on conversations like this. And I keep thinking to myself,
we can't see your eyes, I don't know what's
happening, it feels weird and alien like and if
that's her vibe great, I'm all for it, but otherwise
it's really distracting. That said, if you do have
a ring light and glasses, never fear, we're gonna use
the exact same principle to make a ring light work. First thing I'm gonna do, is
raise it up, as high as it. Yeah, oh yeah, this will be good. So it's out of the angle of incidence. And because it's up high right now, what's great about this
ring light even though, there's other reasons why I don't love it, is it has this angle adjustment. So I can angle it down 'cause
there's a little bit more of an angling or coming down toward me, but it's going to be up high
enough that it won't catch no reflection. As you can see, now as my computer screen, you can't see the ring light
until you angle up a bit and you can't really notice,
but I'll show you the side, see how it's tilted. The benefit of that angle is that, instead of just the bottom
being the most intensity, creating that angle, is
creating the same distance between both the top and the bottom, so it's giving me more of an even light. Now, if we put our glasses
down, we're getting much better. However, this ring light isn't
bright enough to cut down the glare from the computer. So if I was using this as an actual setup, what I would have to do,
is dial down the brightness until I get rid of that reflection. Yeah, this just isn't my favorite. And this ring light, I really, it's tough because it's supposed to be bi-color, which means it's supposed to
be warmer on the one at hand, that's more tungsten and cooler but the cooler is super magenta. How I've actually been
using it, is in my course that I just created called
amplified or tokenized that helps go through the
process to really make meaningful campaigns that have
meaningful representation and are pushing towards inclusivity. What I did, is I used a
big window as the key light and then put this ring light,
on it's more magenta cooler mode in the background, so
it created a really nice vibe but it's definitely not color accurate. That's it, you made it
to the end of the video. And I love you for that. This was a little bit of a long one. That means so much to me,
that you were in it with it. I'm super excited for you
to now show up on Zoom and on your computer and just
look and feel like a boss. Remember, that if you are
having these critical voices that are telling you that
you're not good enough, that you're too old,
you're too fat, you're too, your hair line goes back
too far, whatever it is, it's your brain lying
to you, you are awesome. And you're a badass and most
people are so self obsessed thinking about how they look
and they're just listening to the information that
you're giving them. So take a deep breath. Remember that you're amazing. And if you, aren't already a part of this crazily growing family,
just subscribe below and make sure that you ding the bell and turn on all notifications, so that you can see when
new videos come out. And if you're looking
for a little more info on how to look and feel
amazing, check out these videos. - Bye. (bright upbeat music)
