Critique Back to photographing a wine bottle

[Mike Buckley]

Now that I've been getting into water drop photography, some of you folks might have thought I had stopped photographing wine bottles. Nah. That will never happen.

I just love the decorations on the side of the wine label, so I decided to limit the depth of field to draw the eye to that area of the label. It wasn't until I saw the photo displayed in a large magnification on my computer monitor that I realized the artist nearly certainly in my mind inserted an image of a flying bat into the scene.

Setup
The tabletop is the black plastic serving tray I've been using as a catch basin for my water drop photography. As I was setting up the composition, I realized, for only the second time in seven years of regularly photographing wine bottles, that the fluorescent lamp mounted in the ceiling is perfect for what I was hoping to convey.

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

 

[Palouse]

Cool, a Halloween wine, or COVID-19. Mascota is Spanish for pet . . .
Nicely done.

 

[Mitchell]

Love this one, Mike. It's also one of my favorite Malbecs.

With all the efforts and discussions on focus stacking lately, this shot really shines because of the way you gently soften the focus on the far side of the label. Much more artistically pleasing and less clinically precise.

 

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Nick and Mitch!

With all the efforts and discussions on focus stacking lately, this shot really shines because of the way you gently soften the focus on the far side of the label.

My take is that there are some close-up scenes that are best shot with everything in focus and some scenes that are best shot only partly in focus, mostly depending on what the photographer wants to convey about the scene.