A Transparent Still Life

Photographing a Transparent Object

  Recently I decided to photograph something that was transparent such as glass. I looked around the house and found some champagne glasses, so I decided that would be my subject.

  I set up what I call a sweep. It was just a white washable piece of 4x8 wall board I bought at Lowe's. The board is very flexible so giving it an S curve was easy. I just clamped one end to the top of a product shooting table I made (I will make the plans available soon) letting the board cascade down off the lower edge so when you looked at it from the side it resembled an S.

  The empty glass was then placed on the lower front edge so the board served as a platform and the background.

  The best way I have found to photograph glass is to light it from behind. So I aimed my light at the background directly behind the glass. If I were to leave the set like this there would be very little edge definition. So, I placed a 20" x 30" piece of black foam board on either side of the glass just out of the photo. The black reflected nicely on the edge of the glass.

  Now I needed some color. I had some nice red wine left over from the night before, so I poured some in the glass. It was way too dark to photograph well. I hated to do it, but I diluted the wine with water until I got a color I liked.

  For the final touch I used a straw to blow some bubbles in the wine. I thought the uninterrupted line at the top of the wine was too boring and needed to be broken up.

  I think it makes a nice picture even if I do have wine in a champagne glass.