Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Show us light in a surprising way.
Better late than ... something. I've been shooting boring stuff for web sites for several days, so the idea of playing around with light was certainly fun.
This is a very easy setup to do, and the best part is that I did it on the cheap. The background is a black fabric I picked up for two bucks a yard. The glass is full of sparkling apple juice (cheep and bubbly!) and I sat it on a piece of glass from a picture frame for reflection.
The tricky part was the lighting. While I happen to have a couple of light stands and umbrellas, they're not necessary at all. I used a 100 watt daylight CFR bulb from Home Depot in a little clamp fixture that I bought from Staples. I clamped that to my stand and placed the stand at a 45-degree or so angle above and behind the table. I bounced the light off of the umbrella. (You can use a white cloth umbrella or a piece of white cloth.) Because it was daylight and I was shooting in my living room (no expensive studio for me), I hung a black cloth behind the camera to block out ambient light.
Now comes the one specialized piece of gear: The light in the glass is from an ultraviolet laser. You can use a regular laser pointer and get a similar effect. In fact, I'll be posting pictures later this week using an off-the-shelf cat toy, I mean laser pointer. I set the exposure for one second and held the laser directly above the glass, moving it around just a bit during the exposure. That's what created the "rays" in the glass.
So there you have it. Thanks for suggesting this, John. I was definitely ready to play!
Tags:
Pictures,
Monday Photo Shoot