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March 3, 2025
Behind The Image Weekly - Psychedelic Wine Glasses
Psychedelic Wine Glasses by Darryl Hodson (skibreeze7)
Background....Back in my film days, I had attempted my hand at shooting table-top glassware photography, and quickly learned that you can get some interesting visual effects with the refraction of background elements if the glassware is filled with some sort of liquid.
I also learned that repeated patterns in a given background will add to the visual impact of any liquid-filled glassware. This was exemplified when I placed a plastic dimpled ceiling panel as my backdrop, and was pleasantly pleased with the resultant combination of a patterned backdrop and water-filled glass refraction, as well as employing back-lighting for illumination of the image.
Two decades later, I again tried out glassware photography with my digital camera gear, and quickly realized how much I could improve this sort of photography, if one had an interesting backdrop for this type of table-top photography. I had this same realization with regard to macro photography, in that I was trying to figure out how to come up with some interesting backdrops for a macro subject, with an appealing out-of-focus background if one was shooting macro in an artificially controlled environment.
In the past, a number of macro photographers were using colorfully patterned fabric that they had picked up at a fabric store, or had purchased art posters for an artificial backdrop to photograph their macro subjects. I decided that I wasn't too keen on purchasing a bunch of backdrops for my photographic needs, and started brainstorming how I could achieve the same result at a much cheaper cost.
It was then that I came up with the idea of using my computer monitor as a backdrop, and merely going through my archived images to come up with a colorfully patterned background for my table-top glassware images. After spending some time going through my "Backgrounds" folder, it soon dawned on me that I really didn't have any images worthy of a backdrop for my glassware photography.
That led to me having to start from scratch, and come up with a background pattern utilizing an image software program such as Photoshop. So, I created a blank canvas in PS, and just kept manipulating its tools and filters until a came up with a pattern I liked. I repeated this process, coming up with a variety of backgrounds, both in pattern and color. An examination of a number of my other glassware images will see this similar technique.
(Note...although I came up with this concept on my own, other photographers have been employing this same technique, and have actually superseded me by taking advantage of their HD flatscreen tv's, instead of a computer monitor.)
Having said that, this particular background for this image was an image from my archives, that I heavily manipulated in PS to come up with a vividly colorful background.
Setup....The background pattern you see is actually on my computer monitor. I placed a scrap piece of black plexiglass that I had picked up at our local glass shop on my computer desk, and then put a couple of books under it to raise the plexiglass a few inches from the desktop to hide the bottom of the frame of the monitor.
I then placed the wine glasses on the plexiglass, filled them with water from a separate container, and then wiped away any water drops off the glasses with a paper towel. I moved my computer chair out of the way, set the camera and tripod up just inches from my computer desk, and purposefully lowered the camera to a height just high enough to get a decent reflection of the wine glasses in the plexiglass. I did my best do align the stem of the center wine glass to match the center pattern of the background image. To my surprise and delight, the refraction from the center wine glass further transformed the refraction from the back two wine glasses.
At the camera angle that I chose for this shot, you can see that the glasses actually protrude a bit higher than the top of my computer monitor. I didn't mind too much, however, because I liked the rim-lighting (literally) of the rims of the glasses on a black background.
Post-processing: Because the colors, saturation and vividness of the background image on my computer monitor were accentuated enough, I didn't really have to enhance the image in post-processing with regard to those settings. What I did do, however, was spend a considerable amount of time cloning out air bubbles, dust spots and scratches from all three glasses, as well as any extraneous light reflections that were in the original image.
I've suffered from OCD since childhood (before OCD was even a diagnosis-think Howard Hughes), so it's not unusual for me to spend an hour just getting rid of dust spots, air bubbles, raindrops and scratches in an image.
Nikon D800, 16-35VR @ 17mm, F/16, 10 seconds, ISO 100
God bless,
Darry Hodson
Posted by dm1dave at March 3, 2025 2:00 AM