UPDATE: After completing the course, and with the wisdom of hindsight, I have realised that beverage photography is challenging, and it was naive of me to expect "instantly good" results. Throughout the course, the instructor remained patient and helpful.
A thunderstorm rolled in tonight, precluding any possibility of safe outdoor photography. No barns, bridges and building hunting tonight.
Fortunately, some of the photography equipment I ordered on Amazon.com was delivered yesterday and this afternoon. The order includes a 6 ft X 9 ft black chromakey studio fabric backdrop and a collapsible white oval disc reflector. A reflector disc Holder clip attaches the disc reflector to a AmazonBasics aluminium tripod stand.
The lighting diagram below is a fair approximation of the setup.
Last weekend, our instructor taught the class the use of a 1 to 1 mixture of vegetable glycerin and water in a spray bottle to create "water droplets" on the glass and bottle. I think I overdid it with the application of the mixture.
The final image is a composite. I shot the beer glass separate from the beer bottle to get the light outline along the sides of the bottle and the glass and prevent shadows. I then combined the layers in Adobe Photoshop. I have one white reflector behind the tripod to bounce light to the front of the bottle. However, the centre of the bottle was not as bright as I wanted. After I combined image layers, I used the adjustment brush in Adobe Lightroom to lighten the bottle label.
I think backlighting would have brought more impact to the bottle and the glass, and the side lighting from the speedlites may need more diffusion to soften the light source further. I didn't use it, but the Krylon ColorMaster acrylic crystal clear coat spray that I bought on Amazon would help the glycerine bead up to create larger "water droplets". And I should have made sure the beer head went all the way to the top of the glass.
Submitted as part of the 100DaysToOffload project.
