Marleen 020

Marleen and I had not met before her photo shoot
and she appeared in her own glasses. The first thing
I noticed was the lovely shape of her eyes which was
accentuated by the uncommon axis and strength of
the cylinders in the lenses. The axis is around 90 and
I call this a horizontal cylinder (indicated as "h" in the
description of the Rx of the glasses featured in this
weblog). Generally speaking, a horizontal cylinder is
more flattering than a vertical cylinder, especially when
the cylinders are fairly strong. The eyes are minified in
the horizontal direction only. The minification is about
2% per diopter, so a cylinder of -4.00 produces an image
in which the eye looks 8% smaller than it does in the
vertical direction. The overall effect is an oval - or even
"rounded" - eye shape.
From the glasses in my collection I have the impression
that vertical cylinders are more common than horizontal
cylinders. I don't know why this is the case. Perhaps an
experienced optician can throw light on the matter. It may
have to do with the force of gravity. Most of my previous
models with myopia have vertical cylinders.
My basic approach in the photo shoot with Marleen was to
compare the effect of the horizontal cylinder with the image
produced by glasses without cylinders. I asked her to vary
the shape of her eyes and that's why you see some neutral
portraits, followed by wide eyed portraits. The contrast is
quite remarkable.
Here, Marleen is posing in 1990's Visions glasses with very
weak (-0.50) vertical cylinders, so this comes close to the
natural shape of her eyes. We started the photo shoot with
the glasses that had no horizontal cylinders and we finished
with the only three glasses in my collection that are near
her own prescription.
Aside from the technical story, this is another lovely portrait!