Behind-The-Scenes | Saison Rue

Final Image

For this image I wanted something classic, like a wine bottle shot...but with a twist! I searched Google Images for wine bottles and put together a mood board. I liked the idea of a wood box and packing straw. It seems to suit this Belgian Farmhouse Ale.

Mood board

I picked up a wine box from Total Wine and More, and then headed over to Michael's to look for some packing straw. I walked up and down the aisles looking for straw or something similar and eventually I stumbled across raffia. I'm not sure what this stuff is, but it looks the part. When I got home I stuffed the box with this straw-like material and placed the bottle on top of it. The image is starting to come together, but it seems a little lifeless. It needs some pop. I decide to remove the bottom of the box and shine a light through the raffia, that should give it the twist I'm looking for.

Prop shopping

Bottom removed

With a rough concept in mind I begin to setup the shot. I used sawhorses, a couple of 2x4's and a large sheet of glass to construct my shooting table. My lighting plan consists of two lights; a main light for the bottle and a backlight for the raffia. I placed my main light to camera right and slightly higher than the box. My backlight is below the glass angled to produce some light falloff.

Main Light: Alien Bees B800 with stripbox

Backlight: Alien Bees B800 w/ reflector

I set my backlight by taking test shots using various power settings on my flash unit. I swept through the range (full - 1/32) and selected 1/4 power as my backlight setting. This gave me the exposure I wanted on the background, the light falloff from left to right and colors that tied in with the label.

Backlight power settings

During the test shots I noticed unflattering light entering the bottle above the label. I used Cinefoil and cut out a flag shaped to match that portion of the bottle. Cinefoil is an aluminum wrap, similar to aluminum foil and use to control light.

Distracting light pattern above label

Flag cut to shape

Distracting light blocked by flag

Now to set up the main light. I adjusted the strobe power setting the same way I adjusted the backlight. I used a diffuser panel between the stripbox and the bottle in order to give the reflection a smooth gradient. I decided to set the strobe with 1/2 power setting.

Main Light power settings

Diy diffuser panel

With diffuser panel

Without diffuser panel

The camera was mounted on a tripod and triggered by a wired remote. The studio strobes were triggered by a wireless transmitter.

DSLR: Nikon D700
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8
Focal Length: 75mm
Aperture: f/16
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200

I processed the images using Capture NX2, Photoshop CS6 w/Nik Collection. The final image is a composite of images 1 & 3. As captured, Image 3 didn't quite have the pop I wanted so I "blended" image 1 and 3 by using a soft light blend mode to image 1. This gave the raffia more definition and contrast. To finish off the image I used Nik Collection to add some contrast, brighten the label, darken the corners and sharpen the image.

Well, that's my take on a classic shot.