The task for this project was to light a subject in a complex way that creates dramatic imagery. I wanted to use a fragrance bottle because I see many artistic photos of beautiful bottles in the beautiful scenery. Plus, the reflective faces would be cool to capture for a transparency photo and a reflective photo. I chose to photograph a Versace cologne bottle called Dylan Blue. The gold and blue colors with a simple design seemed like they would make an elegant photo. I needed to take photos using the object but two different concepts: transparent material and reflective surface.
For the transparency photos, I found this interesting acrylic plexiglass with a water ripple texture. I placed this texture as my backdrop. The camera I used was a Nikon D500 with an 18-140.mm lens. The lens was positioned directly in front of the bottle slightly above so the frame could be angled downwards. Then, I adjusted my camera to have the following settings: ISO100; 140mm, F18, 1/100 sec. I choose the settings of ISO100 and shutter speed of 1/100 sec to fit the standard setting of the ASU studio. The 1/100 sec shutter speed was slightly slower than the sync speed of 1/200 sec by error. The 140mm focal length was to ensure the subject was zoomed into the shot.
Next, I added my lighting once my camera was properly composed. I used a total of two lights for this photo. The key light was positioned below the subject using a reflector dome. I had an assistant hold the light below the acrylic to light up the subject. I also placed an orange gel light on the reflector. The orange hue created a flattering warm light effect on the bottle. The ripples of the backdrop were also enhanced by the light. The second light was a square softbox. The softbox was placed on the right front of the fragrance bottle. This helped highlight the front of the bottle as well as the lid. To create a gradient on the lid I grabbed a big white reflector to put on the left side. This reflector board bounced light back into the lid as seen on the lid’s left side. Once, I had the two lights set up I felt like there was still something missing in the composition. So, I placed a mirror towards the front and angled about 45 degrees to add specular light to the image. The mirror also helped reflect more light on the bottom portion of the bottle’s surface. The biggest challenge I had with this scene was grasping the concept of lighting reflective surfaces. I attempted to light the image with lights straight on but they wouldn’t light the way I picture in my head or how it looks to the naked eye. Just placing a light directly on a reflective surface can cause overexposure or unflattering, reflective shapes on the bottle. One solution that helped was keeping in mind that reflective surfaces in commercial photography often are not directly lit. Moreover, reflectors are angled on the subject and those reflectors are lit. So, light is bounced onto the cologne bottle. A laser point placed on the bottle also helped to see where the reflections would go on the bottle. This helped with the specular light.
