Bonnie 094

These Marc O'Polo glasses were acquired in Bavaria, Germany, a few years back, during summer holidays with three of my models (Lucy, Gita and my life partner Nel). The weather gods were not on our side, to say the least. Rain, rain, rain.... The idea of doing a few nice "Klettersteige" in the impressive limestone chain "Wilder Kaiser" above Kufstein, Austria were soon forgotten and we spent several nice days in Bavaria where the weather was slightly better. A friendly optician allowed me to check their boxes with old glasses left by customers and this pair caught my fancy straightaway. Note the big difference in spheric strength between both lenses. This difference (+5.00 for the left eye, +2.50 for the right eye) worked quite well for Bonnie who has fairly strong astigmatism (+2.25). A thorough search in my collection was fruitless, none of my 2000 glasses was exactly in Bonnie's prescription. However, there is a trick, sometimes used with contact lenses. Whether it works or not depends on the axis of the cylinders. Sometimes you are lucky - one eye gets the minimal Rx (without cylinder) and the other eye gets the maximal Rx (sphere plus cylinder translated into spherical strength). Somehow the two images - each blurry on its own - merge and the combined effect gives the model almost perfect eyesight. I first discovered this effect during the preparation for my photo shoots with Marleen, one of the star models from my first weblog. Marleen had extremely strong cylinders in her glasses (-4.00) and in some cases she could see quite well through the glasses brought along to her first photo shoot. With this in mind, I brought the Marc O'Polo glasses to Ireland with Bonnie in mind. The results were great!