Ah yes, it is that time when the work week winds down, and the weekend is on its way.  What better way to chillax than with an icy cold one.  No, I don't mean the ones flavored with lime (you know who you are).  What I am talking about is a fully hop-charged, mouth puckering, greater than 100 IBU, stomper of a beer.  This is a kick in the teeth and a punch in the gonads.  OK you get it.. here's the unveiling. 

So is it overkill to worship Ninkasi? Probably, but I had a few laying around from a generous friend, so I had to shoot it.  Plus, did I mention it freakin rocks?   

But, the reason I had to shoot it goes beyond my obsession with the beer.  It's the dreaded bottle shoot, you know, the impossible?  No idea what I'm talking about? Try taking a good photo of a glass object or a wine bottle.  In all their reflective glory, they reveal major problems when we try to photograph them.   The biggest issue is trying to minimize reflections of the camera / studio, but also lighting them evenly without creating specular highlights.  

While these shots are nowhere near perfect, it's a start, to my new fascination with glass / bottle photography.  This first shot pays respect by showing off the front face of the Tricerahops.  Specs 1.3' f18 ISO 100.  Two DIY softboxes with CFL bulbs provide lighting from primarily either side, with a slight bias towards the front.  The bottle was placed on some plexiglass to give it the reflection.  The background was lit by a bare flash to blow out and make a ghost white, seamless backdrop typical of product shots.  The backlight also does one very important thing - it allows the color of the beer to register.   I like the sheen on the bottle, and the color of the label; all of Ninkasi's beer have sweet label designs.  

So you've had total dom before?  Tricerahops kills it. See?  I still love you Total Dom.  This shot sucks.  I think I needed more fill light coming from the right of the camera (ROC), and it needed to be softer.  I do like how the total dom bottle was lit indirectly from the same softbox left of camera (LOC). 0.6s f18 ISO 200

My final and favorite shot.  Mainly because if you look closely, you can see the freakin hops floating in the bottle.  I gently tipped the bottle upside down once, and set it upright.  The speed of flash captures the hops before it settles.  The signage on the left was some creative afterthought which is probably pretty cheesy.  0.5s f18 ISO 200.  I rotated the bottle slightly but kept the same softboxes LOC and ROC primarily from the side and slightly biased to the front.

I wonder if I killed the beer with all this light exposure...