Capturing Glassware – Third times the charm

Capturing photos of glassware is a challenge. The reflective surface will highlight any bright source of light – windows across the room, light bulbs in the ceiling and even the flash of your camera. But it’s only a challenge… meaning it is not impossible. I had to wait until the sun went down so I had no extra light making its way into the unfinished basement (which is where my simplistic photo studio is stationed). I had to turn out all the lights in the basement, including the stairway that leads down to the “dungeon.” My only source of light was a LED light I acquired about 18 months ago. The trick was to set it behind and below the foam board I was using as the table – that way there was no direct light source to reflect on the glasses. It illuminated the background nicely, without bursting on the reflective surface.

I then had to fill up each glass, add the food coloring and stir it up so the colors were consistent throughout. After photographing my first setup, I called it quits and the next morning imported my photos into Lightroom. Doh! There were teenie tiny air bubbles in the water that were more of a distraction than anything. So I had to wait until the next night I had a few minutes to make my second attempt. I had to redo the colored water, and unfortunately I added a few too many drops into the green and blue glasses of water. Seven drops was way too much for such a small amount of water. So when I imported this second attempt into Lightroom, the blue looked purple and the green was way too dark. I wasn’t pleased enough to call it good, so a few nights later, I was back at it. And like they say, third times the charm. In this case… I totally agree.

Canon 60D | 100mm macro lens | f/8.0 | 0.8 seconds | ISO 100 | RAW 

Wait. You wanted to know how the water was slanted in the glass? Well, that’s something I’m going to let you think about. If you know, feel free to share it in the comments, then give it a try yourself. It’s sort of a fun photo to look at because it looks different than what you would expect. Hope you enjoyed it.

~signed, Carltonaut