Eye See You —
I’ve always been fascinated by the opening sequence of Blade Runner, particularly the second or so showing a close-up on an eye. I thought I’d see whether I can take a picture of an eye. Specifically mine.
Similar to my experience with self portraits, turns out it’s much easier to be behind the camera the entire time. With eyes, correct focus is even more daunting due to the close working distance — even at f/11 I had only a half-centimeter depth-of-field. A consistent working distance is critical. My solution was to tape a long Q-Tip to my lens and rest the bridge of my nose against it each time I sat down. Even then there’s variation…
Another challenge is the light source reflection. The human eye’s surface is like a spherical mirror, and reflects about anything. Particularly eyelashes and big, brightly lit umbrellas. I eventually tried creating my own softbox my shooting through a large sheet of white paper, but that seemed to make it worse. In the end, I just had to come to terms with the reflections.