This is one of the most beautiful wine bottles I've ever seen, so I was especially pleased to photograph it. It is my fifth and last photo for now of a second growth grand cru red Bordeaux wine until I get some of the others. There are still nine such wines that I've never owned or photographed.
Photographing a wine label's bright, shiny, metallic parts or an embossed area in the glass bottle can be difficult. A subject such as this one that has both can be particularly challenging. The curved shape of a bottle makes all of that more challenging than if the surface was flat.
Setup
Capture #1: This capture lit everything except the embossed letters in the glass. The tabletop is blue art paper and the background is a navy blue shirt. Their hue was changed to purple during post-processing. A small continuous-light lamp high on the left and a medium one high on the right lit the subject and tabletop. Two flashlights on the left and right sides lit the background. A white reflector in front of the bottle brightened the shiny metallic parts in the center of the label.
Captures #2 and #3: To light the name, Lascombes, embossed on the bottle, a circular sheet of diffusion material 40" in diameter was placed between the subject and a medium continuous-light lamp. One capture photographed the letters on the right side and the other capture photographed the letters on the left side. The lamp was handheld as far away from the diffusion material as possible to modify the light source to the largest possible size. (If I had a large enough studio to provide enough distance between the subject, diffusion material and lamp and to accommodate a larger sheet of diffusion material, I could have captured the entire embossed name in one capture. Alternatively and probably more practical, I could have set up a pair of lamps and diffusion sheets to light both halves of the name in one capture.) The two captures of the embossed letters were moved to the first capture.
Photographing a wine label's bright, shiny, metallic parts or an embossed area in the glass bottle can be difficult. A subject such as this one that has both can be particularly challenging. The curved shape of a bottle makes all of that more challenging than if the surface was flat.
Setup
Capture #1: This capture lit everything except the embossed letters in the glass. The tabletop is blue art paper and the background is a navy blue shirt. Their hue was changed to purple during post-processing. A small continuous-light lamp high on the left and a medium one high on the right lit the subject and tabletop. Two flashlights on the left and right sides lit the background. A white reflector in front of the bottle brightened the shiny metallic parts in the center of the label.
Captures #2 and #3: To light the name, Lascombes, embossed on the bottle, a circular sheet of diffusion material 40" in diameter was placed between the subject and a medium continuous-light lamp. One capture photographed the letters on the right side and the other capture photographed the letters on the left side. The lamp was handheld as far away from the diffusion material as possible to modify the light source to the largest possible size. (If I had a large enough studio to provide enough distance between the subject, diffusion material and lamp and to accommodate a larger sheet of diffusion material, I could have captured the entire embossed name in one capture. Alternatively and probably more practical, I could have set up a pair of lamps and diffusion sheets to light both halves of the name in one capture.) The two captures of the embossed letters were moved to the first capture.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Last edited:
