Ooh, Shiny!

I had hoarded a tequila bottle I liked after we made our last margarita a while ago. I think I got the tequila at Costco. The shape of the bottle attracted me. Turns out that square bottles pose additional lighting challenges.

I tried something a little different for this shot. We imbibed all the tequila, so for the longest time I had this empty bottle. A quick internet search revealed that one of the old Hollywood prop tricks for faux alcohol is to use tea. As I was brewing my "hooch", I forgot how much color tea has. Originally, I tried brewing eight tea bags in about a half gallon of boiling water. This turned out to be almost opaque. I ended diluting my concoction quite a bit to arrive at this color. Next time I will definitely use fewer tea bags. I may try for a little deeper color, as I end up blasting a lot of light through the bottle. When I first poured the tea into the bottle, it foamed up like crazy. A little isopropyl alcohol quickly dispersed all the bubbles. So my homebrew "hooch" has some alcohol after all! 😜

I set up the main light the way I usually light glass bottles - I hung a diffusion screen on camera right, and shot a strip light through that. That gave the big diffuse highlight on the right side of the bottle, with a nice gradation. I shot a strobe behind the bottle on camera left onto a reflector that I use in pints of beer. The shape of the reflector shows through the bottle - the edge of the reflector is not parallel to the back edge of the bottle. Also, some of the wrinkles on the reflector show through the liquid.

Takeaways:

• The reflector placed behind the bottle needs to the same shape as the bottle. Otherwise you will be able to see the edge of the reflector. I will be making a new reflector for this bottle straight away.
• The bottle needs to be placed as close to the diffusion sheet as possible. In this shot you can see the reflection of the acrylic at the bottom of the highlight on the right.
• I will try placing another strip light on camera right behind the bottle. I am not sure if this would help with rim lighting on the right.
• I need to investigate what is causing the hot highlight on the left side of the bottle. This may be light bouncing off the white cabinet doors on camera left.
• I need to try some different things to try to light the emblem of the wolf more evenly. I am not sure if pointing the main light toward the bottle more would provide a more even reflection on the wolf.
• I need to light the background.