Beverage Pours and Bubbles

Creative Ideas Strike Again!

Sometimes your creative mind just starts whirring and the juices are flowing with ideas that you just can’t wait to try. Rarely am I in a place or time where I can immediately take action and work on these ideas, and I usually have to just write them down and hope that I remember them later… and find the small scrap piece of paper that I wrote it down on!

Yesterday however, was just sovereign timing. Shortly after returning from the 9am service at Redeemer, I started getting those ideas flowing and when my lovely wife opted for an afternoon nap, I opted for Carpe Diem!

Getting My Hands Dirty

This series of images I wanted to broaden my beverage category. I have been shooting a lot of food and product, but today, it was all about liquids and the rich colors they bring forth when photographed correctly. Correctly being the key word here, because I have tried this before… and failed miserably! This day however, was different. I had spent some time earlier studying these pour shots from the beverage masters and was able to “deconstruct” their images by studying the light and shadows. Where are the shadows? Where are the highlights? By doing this, you can discern at what position the lights where placed and at what direction they were pointing. Kind of like a ballistics study, only with light. Cool!

Detail of a dark porter beer in glass - ©Chad Jackson | Jackson Visuals

As simple as that sounds, it isn’t always easy… nor pretty! In fact my first series of shots were, let us say, unacceptable. But it did give me a starting point and allowed me to work quickly to understand where my lights DID need to be.

Here’s a quick tip for those who are interested in pulling this off on your own, you can’t light liquids. Liquids are best illuminated by reflected light. If you have ever taken a picture in the rain with your flash firing, you know what I mean. The final image shows bright white drops or streaks of rain. That’s not what it really looked like at the time though was it?

However, if you use reflected light, the color of the liquid will shine through brilliantly. Take for instance the pour shot below. This image had no direct light. The “key” light or main light is actually the white background that I illuminated with one strobe. I did have a second strobe at three quarter back, but only to rake light across the backside of the pour in order to give it a touch of rim light. You really don’t even need that extra light and if you get too much light, you will start to lose the richness of color as it will quickly become washed out.

Beverage pour shot photographed with indirect or reflected lighting. ©Chad Jackson | Jackson Visuals

Give it a try yourself and see how it works. Feel free to send me your best liquid shot along with the description of how you achieved it and I’ll include it in a follow up post.

View the whole series of pours and bubbles along with my other food and beverage images here

Cheers!
Chad

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Photography Portfolios and tagged with beverage photography, commercial photography, pours, product photography, studio lighting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.