Wine being poured into a glass

[Mike Buckley]

Photographing wine splashing out of a glass has been in vogue for a long time. Though I highly respect the skill of the photographers who make those photos and the dramatic impact of that style upon the viewer, I've never personally liked it for my own enjoyment. That's because I prefer a style that more accurately reflects the real-world ambience of pouring wine, noting that wine never splashes out of a glass without someone having to rush to clean up an unexpected, sometimes awful mess.

Even so, a rather large amount of turbulence occurs at the bottom of the glass even when wine is poured under normal circumstances with no splash outside of the glass. I wanted to accurately capture that turbulence, so I made the photo shown below. For the record, this was my 13th pour and not one of them came remotely close to splashing out of the glass.

Setup
The background, which is translucent white plexiglass, fills the frame no more and no less. A speed light is behind it facing the subject and camera. That part of the setup outlines the glass and the wine in dark tones. The short duration of the speed light stops the action of the wine being poured into the glass.

[Jim A]

Very interesting to see the results, Mike, I would never have guessed at all that turbulence taking place (when I poured one ten minutes ago)!

Presume it was the translucent white plexiglass that makes the white wine appear darker, to emphasis the movement.

I am worried about your drinking thirteen glasses of wine, though. I hope that you spread it over a period of up to a week!

[Wavelength]

Every of your creative idea is very very inspiring!!!

[Shadowman]

Very cool.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, everyone!

Presume it was the translucent white plexiglass that makes the white wine appear darker, to emphasis the movement.

The photographic properties of transparent or translucent liquid are the same as similarly transparent or translucent glass. It's easier to understand taking advantage of those properties when viewing a photo of the wine when it isn't in motion. When using the same setup, it looks like this.

Paying attention just to the wine glass, the bright background fills the camera's field of view. The outlines in dark tones of the glass are created because those are the areas that are at the limit of the family of angles, which when using this setup is where no light is being reflected.

The same is true of the dark areas of the wine except that the wine (or any transparent or translucent liquid) also acts like a lens. The wine is "seeing" the dark areas all around the room that are beyond the camera's field of view. If the wine is not in motion, it's easy to see when using this setup that the closer it is to the camera (the farther away it is from the background) the smaller the dark areas appear that outline the wine. That's because moving the wine closer to the camera effectively increases the relative size of the bright background and, thus, increases the size of the bright area of the wine.

Perhaps confusing and definitely not explained very well. For more and better information, read Light: Science & Magic.

[LePetomane]

Looks good.

[NorthernFocus]

Mike, with the level of skill that you've displayed in this forum you don't seriously expect us to believe that 13 takes were necessary do you? At least not for photographic purposes

[bnnrcn]

It has to be viewed at lightbox to see the great details . Super indeed Mike

[Rainforest]

This is neat. The composition is very pretty and makes me think of a mermaid for some reason - must be the tail. I like the different liquid qualities - viscous and pebbly. I also like the how the glass is there solidly at the bottom of the frame but not there at all in the middle of the frame. The info is interesting too..I'll try and grasp a tidbit or two.

[Rita]

Excellent. I like how you have captured both the smoothness of the pour as well as the turbulence.

[lovelife65]

This is just so cool, and way outside of my talent range .

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, everyone!

you don't seriously expect us to believe that 13 takes were necessary do you?

The problem is that I didn't nail it in the first three takes. After those three drinks, each successive drink mdae it less and les posibel to do anyhting write.

[NorthernFocus]

The problem is that I didn't nail it in the first three takes. After those three drinks, each successive drink mdae it less and les posibel to do anyhting write.

Ah! That makes perfect sense. Silly that didn't occur to me to start with