Nostalgia 013 : Farishta

Another vintage pair of glasses from the cat eye era shown by "our Mona Lisa in glasses". This portrait is from my first photo shoot with Farishta, in late December 2009. The glasses were made by Preciosa and the frame was quite popular around 1960. The lens for the left eye is -6.50 and the lens for the right eye is no less than -14.50. The optician managed to avoid the use of a myodisc but only just. Anti-reflective coating did not exist in those days and neither did high index lenses. As a result, the strong lens caught an excessive lot of glare. Four models posed in these glasses but this portrait of lovely Farishta was the only successful candidate for editing. The lens for her left eye gave the model almost perfect eyesight and she was happy to have at least monovision. My guess is that the first owner of the glasses had little more than monovision and probably a lot of trouble with double images. A three diopter difference between both lenses is generally seen as the upper limit for functional glasses. But back in 1960's there were no contact lenses so the lady in question simply had to make the best of it. For your information, the frame is blue. Colour photography was quite rare around 1960 and this portrait is edited in black and white to bring back the nostalgic feeling.