Metal and Glass

Overall, this assignment was a whole new challenging for me. First of all, I never have experienced shooting glass and metal especially in a studio. One merit shooting at a studio was that I was able to direct the light. For example, I could use a multiple light sources and place them wherever I wanted making a glass look distinctive from the background. Shooting a glass with a sharp edge line was a key point of this assignment.
However, it was not as easy as I expected. To obtain a sharp edge line of a glass, I needed to learn more about a glass like I try to know about the person’s various aspects before I take a portrait of him/her. Unveiling the subject!
To avoid surface reflection, I needed to use an acrylic panel that helps to diffuse the light evenly in all directions (makes the light really soft). It reduced a possibility causing surface reflection that might have been appeared if the light was fallen directly.
In order to make the glass look distinctive with a sharp edge from the background, I needed to measure the glass correctly by proper metering and bracketing. I started to bracket exposure from ‘1/125’ and ‘f 16’ as a light meter indicated. It provided the whitest background when a camera was set as ‘1/125’ and ‘f 13’ that was 2 stop over exposed than what a light meter indicated. A proper bracketing reduced the possibility misleading the subjects.
To make champagne look liquid, I used an apple juice and ‘sprite’ to make bubbles.
It was really hard to capture the moment. After 40 times attempting to drop the tablets, I was able to capture the moment of the tablet was sinking as I intended. However, it turned out to be underexposed. I caught the moment while I was bracketing. I was in a big dilemma, which one to choose? After discussing with Jessica Cherry, my assignment partner, I decided to turn in ‘underexposed with right moment’ image. I actually tried a couple more times to capture the moment with right exposure, but it was hard to recapture the moment. I again learned by mistakes and failures.
I didn’t have any problems shooting with speedotron and a light meter in contrast to the last time ‘portrait assignment.’ I started to gain a technique and confidence at the studio. It took me only 5 minutes to set up all lights and reflectors. It is about 1/5 of time I devoted to my previous assignments.