Glass Bottle: Yellow on a red background

[Mike Buckley]

This is one of many bottles on a high shelf in our sun room that I am finally getting around to photographing. The project of photographing all of them should be lots of fun!

Setup
The tabletop and background are a single sheet of textured art paper. The part of the tabletop that is underneath the art paper is clear glass. A speedlight under the tabletop is at 1/64 power. A speedlight at 1/8 power behind the background facing toward the subject and camera is fitted with a custom snoot to shape the vignette. I would have preferred to use continuous-light lamps but they don't offer the easy control of light output (both power and shape of the light) that the speedlights provide.

The vignette was produced entirely by the lighting, not at all by the post-processing.

The yellow tones in the bottle were enhanced during post-processing. If I had not done that, the red tones of the art paper projected onto the subject would have altered the bright yellow color of the bottle more than I wanted. There are other ways to retain the yellow tones of the bottle as part of the setup, but those methods would have taken a LOT more time and perhaps with no better results.

EDIT: The revised image displayed below is thanks to Dan's comment.

[Dave A]

Nicely done Mike.

Dave

[NorthernFocus]

Nice image, Mike. The upper part of the bottle looks like hammered gold/brass. My eye is drawn to the brighter portion at the bottom of the bottle. If that's desired then well done. If not intended then something to consider.

[FootLoose]

Nice image, I really like the colours, Mike. I wonder what it would be like with a plainer background. The texture seems to me to be competing a bit with the pattern on the glass.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Dave, Dan and Greg!

Dan: I intended for the brighter area at the bottom of the bottle to anchor the image. However, after seeing your comment, I reviewed it and made a change that still provides the anchoring effect I had in mind but provides a bit better balance. I replaced the original image with the revision here in the thread. Thanks for your idea!

Greg: A plain background and/or tabletop might work very well and would be the safe approach. I went with the textured background because the texture is primarily linear, which for me is a pleasing contrast with the circular texture in the bottle. One issue I'm concerned about is that it's impossible to clean the inside of the bottle. Using a plain background might make the bottle look dirty, which explains why I chose this more grungy style. The bottle has a twin except that its color is red, so I'll probably make several photos of this one and its twin in different styles including perhaps a background and tabletop that are more plain.

[LePetomane]

Mike, well done as always.

[bje07]

Nicely done, just a regret: the dark part of the inner bottle

[bnnrcn]

Very nice BG Mike. It might be also suitable for a romantic composition with a wine bottle and two wine glasses I like the color contrast in the image. I find the bottle a bit square-built and not very aesthetic though.

[Wavelength]

That's creative excellence!!!!

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, everyone!

Nicely done, just a regret: the dark part of the inner bottle

To each his own. That's one of my favorite parts of the image created entirely by design.

Very nice BG Mike. It might be also suitable for a romantic composition with a wine bottle and two wine glasses

Not sure I have any subjects like that around the house.

[mugge]

Mike, I like the subtle shadings on the bottle complementing the background.
Ole