Earlier this fall I had the opportunity to do a product shoot for a local soft drink company who was taking their product national in Whole Foods. Made from agave cactus nectars, these drinks are competing for shelf space with a whole host of competitors. The owner was rolling out new labeling and needed pics quick. He chose me because of my experience in shooting highly reflective surfaces, particularly glass bottles. To make the images more compelling, the owner wanted the bottles to look like they had just come out of a cooler. Fair enough, but now I needed to figure out how to do it.
The solution turned out to be fairly simple. I set the shot up as I normally would for shooting glass, got the lighting right, checked some test images and liked what I had. Then I used a common household spray bottle filled with water (nozzle set to a fine mist) and sprayed the bottles lightly. The water beaded up naturally, and I started shooting. It was actually pretty simple.
A couple of things to note when doing this:
- If you need to respray them, let them dry first. Towelling the bottles off can result in torn labels.
- Use extra caution if the labels are printed on regular paper. Let the water sit too long, and they will change color.
- Take your time. Rearrange the items as necessary, let them dry completely, then rewet as needed.
But Wait, There’s More…
Just a couple of weeks ago I came across some very cool photos of spiderwebs that had waterdrops on them. The photographer, Sam Pierson, had gone out one morning after a foggy night and got some incredible shots (link above goes to a great gallery of them). When I saw this, I thought “those are awesome, I want to make one”. I don’t have any good webs like that in my area (at least I haven’t found any), but when I do locate some, I plan to take my spray bottle with me and see if the same principle can be applied to the webs. I think you can make the wet look whenever you want.
Special thanks to Sam for letting me use his picture here. You simply must check out his gallery, he has some outstanding images there. For more information about Oogave Soda, check out their website.
Shooting Highly Reflective Surfaces
I have scored a few product shoots because of my demonstrated ability to take good pictures of glass objects. Truth be told however, there really isn’t a whole lot to it.
First step is to have the proper environment to shoot in. For me that means using my oversized DIY PVC Light Tent. It is big enough that the light is distributed really well within. For added measure, when I was building it and then making the second revision, I made sure that the fabric would cover any of the PVC so it would not show up as a reflection in the objects I was shooting.
Second step is, obviously, lighting it. When shooting in the big tent, I tend to go between two different placements for my lights. I use a pair of 27W, 5500K compact fluorescents in standard 10″ clamp light fixtures I got at Home Depot. Sometimes I will place them slightly ahead of center on either side of the tent. Other times I will put them overhead, either facing directly into the tent or bouncing the light off the rafters overhead (sounds goofy, but it works). I take a couple of shots, see how they look, and then readjust as necessary. Most of the time I can get a good idea of how the lights are working from peeking through the viewfinder and then adjusting.
I generally do one or two shots in auto mode to get some idea of the f-stop and exposure ratio, then start working from there. As you can see from the EXIF for the shot above, it can be fairly fast. But again, that depends on how you light it.
One key I have been working on is how to keep the camera reflection from appearing in the object. I account for this in a couple of ways:
1) The opening in my front curtain is only large enough to let the lens through.
2) I do not use any sort of lens hood.
3) When practical, I elevate above the object and shoot downward at an angle. Straight on shots are the worst for showing the camera lens, and I try to avoid this at all costs.
4) When 4 isn’t practical, I try to get any opaque objects on the surface of the object to be in the forefront.
5) When 3 and 4 don’t work, I just deal with the fact that the reflection is part of the image.
These things must be working, as I continue to get product shot engagements, and several specifically indicate it is because of my work with highly reflective surfaces.