Reintroducing myself to photography

[blakemcguire]

I've had some major life adjustments over the last 6 months to a year and haven't had much for photography. I get the feeling that I'm not creative enough with what I'm shooting and that whatever it is isn't worth taking a picture of (usually when I go to the park or whatever). I'm sure tons of people have been through a similar phase, so I'm open to any advice

I have a couple basic ideas for a project to work on, but I don't really know how to go about them yet. So until I work those details out I'm trying to force myself to do something and this is the result at the moment.



Now I see why shooting glass is so hard. The two things I really need to do with this picture are to find how I can get the glass cleaner and find a clear shot glass for the bottom. Are there any other ways I can improve here?

[HaseebM]

Welcome back! Well I hope someone like Kodiak will come in here and perhaps offer advice. I too recently found out shooting glass, especially a blue vase with metal can be quite frustrating.

[Donald]

Blake - Good to have you back on board. Since, I think, you've last posted, Mike Buckley has been doing some amazing things in terms of photographing glass. Hopefully Mike will see this thread and come in with some comments.

[ShaneS]

Yep, I'm there right now so join the club that no one wants to belong to

I get the feeling that I'm not creative enough with what I'm shooting and that whatever it is isn't worth taking a picture of (usually when I go to the park or whatever). I'm sure tons of people have been through a similar phase

I can't speak to the technicalities of shooting glass, Mike Buckley is your guy for that, but I will say that I think that this shot is very creative and I like it! My thoughts were that his shot captures the state of our world today in some respects. The pawn is trapped beneath the queen who is lorded over by the king (but wait I think that you have the queen on top but either way...I can go with the feminist angle on this one )

As a Canadian I get the royal implications but it can also relate it to the whole 99% theory that is floating around where 1% (the King/Queen) holds most of the wealth and has no concept of the problems of the 99% hence the bubbles or glasses in your image.

I don't really want this thread to delve into politics and hope that folks commenting after me don't take this as a political statement worth debating but simply as what the image evoked for me...

Nice work Blake and welcome back

[Shadowman]

Still life is a good starting point while figuring out what you want to do with your photography. Part of the challenge with still life is coming up with the ideas, you've gotten to a good start there. Keep at it.

[Manfred M]

I started playing around with glass again a few weeks ago. My learning experiences so far...

1. Get a nice large soft, diffuse light source and position it close to the pieces being photographed but outside the family of angles that cause reflection issues;

2. Work with a seamless background that has a nice curved transition (sweep) between the horizontal and the vertical;

3. Start with a simple setup and understand how that works before getting more complicated; and

4. Stick to either a light (light-field) or dark (darkfield) background; trying to do both is not going to work that well.

Based on my experinces so far, I'm going to have to pick up some plexiglas to help diffuse the light and start using some flags in my setup (block stray light).

This link should take you to some of what I have done as well as the initial setup I used.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/524694...7646562172751/

[Wayland]

I haven't shot glass for years but the thing to remember is that you are either shooting the reflection of the lights, the contents of the glass or the light passing through the glass.

Very difficult to do all three at the same time.

Here you have the reflection and the contents.

The contents are rendered quite well but the reflections could be improved by making you light sources bigger.

We used to use big sheets of drafting film stretched on frames in front of the lights or indirect light bounced from large sheets of polystyrene as reflectors. Think big smooth reflections.

The other way was to use the same diffusers or reflectors behind the subject with no side lighting but that would mean silhouetting your chess pieces and going for a high key effect.

[Mike Buckley]

Blake,

As Shane mentioned, this is a really creative concept. Beware though, that photographing transparent and opaque objects in the same scene is especially difficult. I recommend starting only with transparent glass. Once you've got the hang of doing that, add the chess pieces to the scene.

There are two fundamental methods that I've seen described for successfully photographing transparent glass. One method (the one I typically use) involves lighting schemes explained in the fourth edition of Light: Science & Magic. The other method employs lighting schemes explained in Lighting and Photographing Transparent and Translucent Surfaces and Lighting Product Photography. Wayland also refers to the two fundamental principles of those schemes in his post. All of the methods involve taking advantage of the physics of light because, of course, we can never get away from that.

Manfred's glass photography is terrific and he offered some great tips about starting out, but I'll mention a couple things I disagree with.

The first idea I'll explain is that when making a white-line (dark background) photo such as this, the light must be at the limits of the family of angles . (When he mentions that the light source is outside the family of angles, that is close to right but not exactly right). Conversely, when making a black-line (bright background) photo, the light must not be at the limits of the family of angles. All of that is explained really well in Light: Science & Magic.

While I agree that starting with a seamless transition between the tabletop and background that eliminates the horizon is a great idea, I really don't think that aspect of the scene matters. Making a scene that includes a distinct horizon also works very well and is no more nor no less difficult to produce insofar as your lighting scheme is concerned.

When he mentioned that combining the white-line and black-line styles in the scene isn't going to work well, I'll agree if he's saying that it's more difficult to make it work well than when using just one of those styles. When the two styles are effectively combined in one scene, the results can be stunning.

As for cleaning glass, good luck! I use Windex and a soft cloth that is so old it no longer produces lint. Even so, when using a dark background, I never get the glass clean enough and have to tidy things up during post-processing. The spots don't show up as much when using a bright background, but even then it's always an issue for me. Even if you do get the glass clean, imperfections in the glass will appear under close scrutiny in the image and have to be treated during post-processing the same as dirty spots.

It seems that every time I photograph clear glass, I learn something. It's a really enjoyable ride! My approach (so far) to photographing glass can be seen at my website. See the link to it in the automated signature at the bottom of my posts.

[skilsaw]

The glasses look pretty clean to me, and the spots I do see give the picture a sense of reality, as opposed to being perfectly clean and therefore an artificial creation.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Blake!

Welcome back. Missed you man!

Hope everything is working out with those life adjustments.

You sure set yourself one heckuva “something to do”! I like the way you roll! This is a cool idea!

So far as cleaning glass is concerned? Alcohol works great.

But if you’re going to do this much glass cleaning in post I’d recommend you drink plenty of it!

[stardelta]

It seems that quite a few are making a return myself included after a 2 year exile, it's good to see a lot of familiar members.

[blakemcguire]

I still haven't had a chance to re shoot this yet. I have the next two days off so hopefully I can do it then.

I just thought I'd mention, I've noticed some of the "fog" down near the bottom is actually the floor of the room behind my set-up. A lot of that could be eliminated by flagging my speedlights.

Nice job on that, Terry. I tried cleaning mine up in post, but I want the hot spots from the flashes to show more rather than less.

We'll see how it goes!

[Loose Canon]

I must have used too much alcohol Blake!

[blakemcguire]

[Mike Buckley]

I prefer the composition of the first one and the lighting of the second one. Even so, the lighting of the second one still fails to display the front of the opaque objects and the sides of the chess pieces are not lit symmetrically as I would expect them to be.

[blakemcguire]

I prefer the composition of the first one and the lighting of the second one. Even so, the lighting of the second one still fails to display the front of the opaque objects and the sides of the chess pieces are not lit symmetrically as I would expect them to be.

Composition wise you mean having the King in the middle and the Queen on top?

[Mike Buckley]

Composition wise you mean having the King in the middle and the Queen on top?

I was referring to the fact that the middle chess piece in the center of the second image is tilted in a fashion that is unattractive. Also in the case of that image, the two small glasses appear to be one behind the other. In the first image, one appears to be inside the other one and I prefer that look.

[blakemcguire]

I was referring to the fact that the middle chess piece in the center of the second image is tilted in a fashion that is unattractive. Also in the case of that image, the two small glasses appear to be one behind the other. In the first image, one appears to be inside the other one and I prefer that look.

Fair enough. I wonder what makes it look like they're in front of each other? Maybe it's because I was at a little bit of a lower angle.

[jcuknz]

When I was a dishwasher in a high class eating place my boss told me after washing glass to rinse it in very hot water just before drying it.
To me photographing glass is simple if you remember that you are photographing reflections ... the hard part is how to organise that in whatever is your 'studio' ... last time I did it around forty plus years ago it was my bedroom
"After the Party" or alternatively "I'm Driving" [cat on left]



Shot with a Rollieflex using the centre colum of my tripod to compensate for the difference between taking and viewing lenses ... lighting would have been two or three photofloods ... set myself the hard task of porcelain and glass in the same shot ... some tidying up recently in editing.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Blake,

I wonder why there is none of the surface showing through the rear of the largest glass at the bottom? Maybe that is helping to contribute to the illusion that the glasses are behind each other? Personally, they look like they are inside one another to me because the highlighted rim of the large glass is visible above and behind the rim of the shot glass.

Not knowing what you are looking to do here, if I were looking to light the chess pieces frontally I would composite the image. The lighting looks good with the second version for the glass to me. Nice job there. I also like the chess pieces rim lighted myself.

Did I notice some remnants of the cleaning job or am I suffering from more optical delusions?

And I have been looking at this shot for a while now and I’m just not seeing where the middle chess piece is leaning! Do you think Mike might have his Ex Officio’s on too tight?



(Been nice talking to you Blake! Probably be my last time since if Mike or Manfred reads this I’ll be tarred and feathered! I already had to kill myself! Twice! )