Pour yourself some blue (alcohol free)

[rob marshall]

This was shot with a studio flash-head fitted with a soft box, placed directly behind the glass and bottle. No light at all in the front (camera side). The bottle/glass is standing on a sheet of white reflective perspex. The water has blue food dye added to match the colour of the bottle. The lengths I go to!

[Ken MT]

Looks the same colour as Curacao Blue, what a waste of food dye

[PhotoRob]

Beautiful image Rob...

[Andrew76]

Hey Rob, nice shot. Without revealing all of your magical secrets, do you mind if I ask how this one specifically was lit? I've been trying something similar, but with a black backdrop, and although I'm getting some decent stuff, it's not really what I'm looking for. This is really nice.
Thanks!

[rob marshall]

Hey Rob, nice shot. Without revealing all of your magical secrets, do you mind if I ask how this one specifically was lit? I've been trying something similar, but with a black backdrop, and although I'm getting some decent stuff, it's not really what I'm looking for. This is really nice.
Thanks!

You need a nice soft diffused light source behind the objects. I used a soft-box on one of my studio flash heads. Th soft box needs to be large enough to cover the shot area, obviously. What that creates is a wall of light shining into the camera lens, but the light shines through the glass and water. You probably need to turn the light down low, otherwise it will just blow out completely. Normally you would direct one light onto say a white backdrop, and the camera would pick up the reflected light, but with this method you get a 'white' background and you get light coming through the translucent objects (two for the price of one!). It does work.

Because there is no light from the front, part of the bottle and glass are in shadow at the front, which is what I wanted, but in a different shot setting you could also use a small side-light to get some more detail in the front, if that's what you wanted. But mine was just a single light.

I did a similar thing with this flower shot some time ago. I just up-ended the head/diffuser, placed the flower on top, and for this one I did use a second light above. I then rotated the shot 180 deg. Here was the setup. Note the Gary Fong diffuser! I love messing with all this stuff.



Which produced this shot here... which rather tricks the viewer into thinking it was shot from underneath.


lily canopy by rob marshall images, on Flickr

[Andrew76]

That's great! Thanks very much for sharing - now off to play with light!! PS - I use a Light Sphere sometimes too - guess we're crazy!

[russellsnr]

Hi, Like the first one but IMO the second (Lily) wins hands down and it's not the OP is it?
Russ

[Rob Douglas]

Impressive, as usual Rob!

[Steve S]

Awesome job on both, rob. And thanks for a peek of your setup.

[rob marshall]

...guess we're crazy!

Actually, I think I'm far more crazy. But keep practising...

[PRSearls]

Beautiful shots, Rob. "Lily Canopy" is gorgeous! Thanks for sharing your setup with us. This gives me some ideas to play with during our long Midwestern US winter. It's just starting... uugh!!

- Paul -

[Andrew76]

Actually, I think I'm far more crazy. But keep practising...

Oh, I will. If I'm only good at one thing in this life..... Haha! Thanks Rob.