My Favorite Backing and Lighting

[George]

Depending on how close I bring the 100 watt light down on top of the bottle, combined with varying adjustment of bringing the light slightly forward, or slightly behind the bottle.

With the macro setting on, and no flash, different shades can be accomplished by playing with the above lighting positions.

I keep my camera level to the bottle, but I like the camera slightly higher ( for me 1" ) than the suface the bottle is standing on.

The distance between the camera and bottle is about one foot.

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi George

Back to the  bug bear..... how to photograph  an  IPB to perfection ?

Stone, enamel ...    any  other  kind of  bottle  medium  is    quite easy  because the   surface is  not a perfect  reflector.  And soft   top light  works best: only a  minimal      reflection  from the   top light on the    shoulders

But the  2 problem  with   IPBs are   that

1)   Glass  reflects  all light perfectly  , so  no matter  where the     lighting is  ( top /   front )  there  are reflections

     Still  - top light  works  best because it  still  limits  reflection to the   shoulders

2)   Because the  painting  is  inside the  glass,  top light   does  not   bring out the  colors  in  full  :  one needs    front lighting as well to   really make the  bottle  appear  in  its  true colors  as      when  viewed with the naked  eye in daylight. The  problem  though , with front light, is   reflections   from the   front  face of the bottle

( and if the  IPB  bottle  is   very  dark  , like  some  copies of  oil  paintings,   one can even  see   reflections   of  the   white cardboard  base  on which the  bottle  is standing , which means    one must use a   black  cardboard base)

Aaaaaaaaagh  : I  have   taken  thousands of  pics    and used    dozens of  methods  in the   search for  the idea  method, and still not there  yet.

I did  correspond  with Hugh Moss's  nephew  ( "HMN") who  photographed the  Bloch  collection , so  his  set  up  was  room-sized .    Even so,  since I now  do own  one  Bloch bottle  (   a  Wang Xisan) I can compare   my technique  with   HMN's  work   and  I can now say

    a) even   HMN's   photos  left   residual reflections  ( I can do  slightly  better)

    b)  HMN's    photos   did not   bring out the  true  colors  ( I can do  considerably  better using  both  top and  fron lighting, but at the  expense of  more reflections , although I can control  where the   reflections   come in my pics  -I find the   front    top  shoulder  is the  least  objectionable)

Huge  topic.    When  I finally   retire  next year I will  spend    2 -3  months to  photograph all my collection. I reckon it  takes  up to  1  hour  per bottle   by the  time   one  has   done all the test pics,  then   finally chooses the  best of the bunch of the   final  shots and   crops/ titles them  ( thank  goodness for   digital  cameras !)

Happy to correspond  with anyone  on this  - either on the Forum  or privately 

Cheers  Peter

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

I did  correspond  with Hugh Moss's  nephew  ( "HMN") who  photographed the  Bloch  collection , so  his  set  up  was  room-sized .    

  Peter, Do you mean Nick Moss, Hugh's nephew who works for him? Nice guy.
Joey

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi Joey

Yes,  Nick Moss.

Very helpful   and friendly guy

Cheers  Peter

[George]

Using dark smoked glass..

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

WOW !

Never  thought of that  !

Cheers Peter