Photographing a Colored, Clear Liquid in a Glass Bottle
You have a clear, colored liquid in a glass bottle. It could be any kind of liquid where you’d want to showcase the color of the liquid in a shot…a beverage, broth, cleaning solution, whatever. In this case, we have a few different hard ciders that have natural colors. How do you get the color to show?
When photographing these cider bottles, I used one or both of these methods:
- I added a Neewer LED light behind or below the cider bottle. It was the perfect dimension and matched up with the bottle.
- In some of these shoots I added a white paper which I cut to the size, and let it cling to the back of the wet bottle. This diffused the LED light a little bit more and created a smoother look.
Behind the Scenes of a Beverage Shoot in a Field
I love shooting with a variety of speedlights, it allows me to be more mobile and flexible especially when doing photo shoots like this, outdoors in a field.
To illuminate the bottle, I used the LED light propped up behind the bottle. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to see the label, and the color would just look super dark and drab. I wanted to add a fun, vibrant look that makes you want to touch the bottle.
Photographing a Hard Cider Bottle in My Driveway
This hard cider is dry, crispy, barrel-aged so it has an earthy, woody twist to the flavor. This is very dry and also very good! Because this cider was also very clear, I wanted to show this as a light-colored, crispy beverage.
Originally I didn’t intend on photographing this product in the dark in my driveway! But I had a large whiskey barrel that was super heavy. It was a cool summer night and I was up for having some fun. I’m sure the neighbors were wondering why there were so many flashing lights in my driveway at that hour.
I want to show you how I was able to get this drink to look light colored. Here are photos that show a progression of the shoot. I ended up using a wet, white piece of paper cut to the size of the bottle. You can adhere the paper by just wetting the paper. You can also use tape, but I found that if I’m spraying a bottle with water or a glycerin/water mix, the tape might come off. Adding the white paper helps the light to be more diffused, and shows less of the little individual LED bulbs in the light panel. Since it’s a very, very clear drink, it shows detail from the LED light without the white paper diffuser.
