Taking photos of the crown

[Surfarosa]

I just heard that whilst a flash makes the hairline look great in photos, it actually make shots of the crown look much worse. Is this true ?

 

That would suggest to me that flash shots of your crown and top of head - for the purposes of chronicling progression of thinning or the effectiveness of medical treatments - would be the most critical & accurate as the light is always a) harsh and b) the same.

[Surfarosa]

Any quick input on this one fellas ?

[TakingThePlunge]

Surfarosa,

 

I've taken the liberty of moving your post to Open Hair Loss Topics from the Welcome section. It should get a lot more views now.

 

All the best,

[hairthere]

If your hair is thinning I don't think it matters if it's the crown or the hairline when it comes to using a flash. The more scalp there is to reflect off of, the worse your hair will look. As far as being more accurate, it's also important to have the exact angle when snapping pics, which can be very hard to do--even if using a tri-pod, and the exact same room lighting. I believe there's a thread on here somewhere with tips for picture taking.

Edited September 8, 2010 by hairthere

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Well noone will ever accuse me of being a photographer. But here is how we do it. I take pics with and without the flash, under the office lighting and a few feet away and see if I can get a few photos that are in focus. Because of numerous constructive comments from real camera guys, I try to post both a flash and without a flash if appropriate. Nevertheless I am not a good photographer and it seems to work reasonable for me to post cases this way. For you as a blogger...the standards are more forgiving. The only exception is that there are occasional folks with an agenda to make a result look significantly better OR worse than reality for one reason or another. That includes folks padding their results and disgruntled folks trying to make things look worse than they appear in person.

 

I have seen this not only in hair, but also in face work. For me, "honesty" in face pics is much easier. Essentially a reproducible profile is created by drawing an imaginary line from the cheek to the top of the ear canal and making that parallel to the floor. That way necks look consistant and show the result of surgery, rather than putting your chin down preop and lifting it up postop, making results look dramatic.

 

If only hair pics were as simple.

 

My advice is try your best and as a patient, make sure you meet a doctor before committing to a plan.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[Jotronic]

Good question.

 

Flash does make the crown look thinner. I can take a picture of a crown with flash, then take another without, and post them with the headline "1500 to grafts to the crown" and people would oooh and ahh over it. However, when taking photos of a hairline I can take a picture without flash and post it as a before picture then take a picture with flash and post it as an after as a result from surgery and again, people would ooh and ahh over it. Both scenarios would unfold with each photo being taken no more than five seconds apart from each other.

 

Flash also washes out the details of of the skin surface where the exit point of a graft looks absolutely perfect regardless of bumps or pits. I've seen it because of experiments I've conducted. On donor scars, both from strip and from FUE, the flash washes out the scalp tissue and makes it all look whiter. Scar tissue is white so if the flash makes the scalp whiter as well then the scar tissue blends into the scalp and is harder to see.

 

That is why we don't post before/afters with flash. You don't walk around with a flash bulb firing off every second so why take photos with flash? It offers no value to the viewer because they are looking at something in the photos that they certainly will not see in reality.

 

It is not a good idea to use flash to document a progression series of photos because the before pictures would represent a deficit rather than the actual starting point. Any progress in the area would also be distorted because some hairs would be caught up in the "wash out" of the photo and not be visible.

[Surfarosa]

Surfarosa,

 

I've taken the liberty of moving your post to Open Hair Loss Topics from the Welcome section. It should get a lot more views now.

 

All the best,

 

Thanks David ! I'm not sure how you select where its posted !

[Surfarosa]

Thanks all for solid thoughtful responses.