Still Life: Photo and Wine Glass

[Mike Buckley]

When my wife's cousin visited us a few weeks ago from out of town, the entire family in our area descended upon our home in Virginia, as most of us had never met him. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes after the last family arrived, he had a mini stroke in our living room. Though he progressed well enough that four days later he was able to fly back to his home in Texas, we never got a chance to show him some family photos. So, I made the still life for him shown below. The portrait is the wedding photo of his grandparents now deceased on his mother's side. My wife and I have been displaying the photo and frame in our home since about 1985 because they are also her grandparents on her father's side.

I am lucky enough to have met both of the people in the photo in their home. I included the doilie in the scene because they had doilies in their home. I chose a white doilie because it reminded me of white wedding dresses and, thus, was appropriate to place under the wedding photo. EDIT: My wife just now saw the photo for the first time and explained that the doilie is actually from their home.

Setup
The background is wine-colored art paper and the desktop is a piece of wood. First capture: A small continuous-light lamp is on the left side raking light across the picture frame to bring out all of its detail. That position also avoids creating unattractive direct reflections on the frame and the glass covering the portrait. A white reflector on the right adds a highlight to that side of the stem of the wine glass to separate it from the background. Second capture: The wine glass is removed from the scene to prevent reflections from being cast on the glass in the picture frame. The portrait not including the frame was merged with the first capture.

[Shadowman]

Nice combination and capture.

[Wavelength]

A good tribute to cherish memories....Very well organized image

[mugge]

Mike, this is one of your finest images. The slightly uneven doillie works to make the scene authentic.
Cheers Ole

[Dave A]

I like the way you cropped the wine glass, daring but works perfectly in this image IMO.

Dave

[bnnrcn]

I love it Mike Great nostalgic look.

[Rita]

This is beautiful and very thoughtful.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, everyone!

The slightly uneven doillie works to make the scene authentic.

Thanks for mentioning that detail. I wondered if it was uneven enough or too much, kept adjusting it to determine the impact of changing it, and finally left it as is when I felt comfortable with it for no particular reason.

[mknittle]

Excellent image Mike. love the lighting.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, Mark!