Sonia 167

Trompe-l'oeil (French for "deceive the eye") in a contemporary version. Taking this photo was a special request from my side and it called for a good bit of navigation by Sonia as she was following my instructions.

The photo suggests that Sonia is wearing sunglasses, watching her photographer and holding an extremely strong pair of regular glasses at some distance from her face, nearly halfway the camera.

In reality, there were no sunglasses at all. We are looking at a projection of the shape of the Sheng Dian frame. The shades that create the optical illusion are simply the result of the way the myodisc lenses catch the light.

I first discovered this trompe-l'oeil effect during my photo shoot with an excellent freelance model called Melissa, in the summer of 2011. Melissa had finished a great series of portraits in myodisc glasses and she slowly removed the glasses. All of a sudden, I said to her "Hold on, I see something unusual....". It was as if Melissa was wearing sunglasses. We spent five minutes searching for the ideal distance between her face and the myodisc glasses. It was trial and error but eventually we succeeded. In that portrait one gets the impression that Melissa is wearing two pairs of glasses on top of each other, the sunglasses being nearest to her face. The Rx of the myodisc glasses used by Melissa is -14 and she held the glasses further away from her face than Sonia does in this photo. The stronger the lenses, the darker the shades and the shorter the distance between the model's face and the myodisc glasses.

Thank you, Sonia, for your patience during our little experiment!