DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

How to shoot atmospheric photos of glass with just a couple of speedlights

Jan 6, 2020 by John Aldred 2 Comments

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Photographing glass can be a very tricky topic if you don’t know how to approach it. It doesn’t react to light the way that most of the subjects we shoot do, because there’s really nothing to actually light. It’s all about the lit objects that reflect off it or refract through it.

You don’t need a lot of fancy gear to photograph glass, though, and in this video from Dustin at Workphlo, we see how we can photograph glass with a very simple setup utilising just a couple of speedlights, a small strip softbox and a diffuser.

It’s a fairly simple setup once you break it down. The glass is placed on top of a black reflective surface, and a gridded speedlight is pointed towards the backdrop to provide a nice round gradient behind the glass.

From the front, this comes through to add some depth to the thick base of the glass. Specular highlights are then added to the outside left and inside right of the glass from a second speedlight inside a small strip softbox shooting through a diffuser.

And then the image is cropped down to the final dimension to cut out the stand, the softbox and the side edges of the black platform, the result is a very nice clean image that shows off the form of the glass wonderfully.

There’s a little bit of post work to extend the background glow more to the sides, fade out the reflection on the bottom and just retouch a few of the imperfections in the glass. Overall, though, it’s a rather nice image which, although shot in colour, makes for a very effective black and white.

This isn’t the only way to “light” and photograph glass, and Dustin has covered other methods of lighting clear glass before, like in this Martini example. But it’s an interesting subject to try to photograph.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Get perfect Martini splashes in the studio with just a couple of speedlights Taiwan couple’s hilarious take on the #FollowMeTo couple turns into #DragMeTo How to photograph wine bottles with speedlights and a kit lens Default ThumbnailExploring Small Strobes: Why Use Speedlights Off Camera

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Dustin Dolby, glass, lighting, product photography, studio photography, Workphlo

About John Aldred

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

« This video helps you master five primary lighting patterns in under ten minutes
The Nikon D780 has officially been announced with Eye AF and 4K 10-Bit HDMI output »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Sony teases upcoming ZV-E1 full-frame vlogging camera coming on March 29
  • The Xencelabs Pen Display 24 is silent, glare-free retouching tablet
  • Fall in love with astrophotography with these 10 space objects
  • Hipstamatic app relaunches as a social network, but only for iOS
  • Instagram now has ads even in search results. Sigh

Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy