Utah is known for the Holy War – Red v. Blue. Utes v. Cougars. Right v. Wrong. I stand on the correct side of this epic battle. Originally, I began this photo with a red poster board in the background, and a black foam board for the other half. But the black wasn’t as vibrant as the solid red, so I found the only other piece of poster board I had at home – blue.

Canon 60D | 100mm Macro Lens | 30″ | f/14 | ISO 100 | RAW

The challenge with photographing glass objects is that my lighting source ends up as a flare on the reflective surface. How do you beat that? You place the light source behind the glasses and illuminate the background. It worked with my lightbulb photo I took a while back, so when I set out to take this photo, I used a similar technique.

After filling the glasses up with water, placing them in front of my backdrop and lining up the camera so the forward center glass was positioned precisely in the middle, I adjusted my camera settings and began taking my photos. Since I was in my pitch-black basement with no exterior lighting, I was able to allow for a very long exposure. I set the camera on a two-second delay so that once I triggered the shutter, I could get the LED Flashmate light positioned above and behind the glasses. After holding it for 30 seconds, I would go back to see how the attempt looked. A few minor adjustments and another shot.

In all, I like the look. But if I were to take the shot again, I would run my glasses through the dishwasher and then boil some water before pouring it into the glasses. This would help the glasses look more clear, because as I illuminated the exposure on the RAW photo, it really brought out all the floatings – after all, the goblets were purchases from Deseret Industries (so you don’t know what’s been in them).

~signed, Carltonaut