P#26: An Intoxicating Shot of a Glass of Red Wine

Creative Lighting For a Dark and Dramatic Shot

Ron Goldman: This photograph of a glass of red wine was done with rim lighting, which is a fairly simple way to light translucent liquids and show the outline of a subject. (click the image for a larger version)

This is a bottle red wine with a glass of red wine in front of it. Behind the wine bottle, there's a sheet of black foam core board that is just slightly smaller than my soft box, which has got a studio strobe light fitted inside of it.

By just allowing the edges of the soft box to let a little light through, you get this beautiful rim light effect that only shows up on the edges of the surfaces. The actual red streak that you see is the light that's hitting the wine bottle behind it, there's enough to actually shine all the way through the glass of wine and leave that nice bright red mark.

Audri Lanford: Fascinating. Can you tell us a little bit more about the lens you used because that's just amazing. And your shutter speed? Is it short, long, or doesn't it matter?

Ron Goldman: In shooting with flash in the studio, most cameras have a certain speed that they'll sync with the flash. Usually it's 1/125th of a second or 1/250th of a second depending on the camera. This was shot at f8 at 1/250th of a second.

I used a 90mm manual focus lens so I was able to get in as close as I wanted and fill the frame with the wine bottle and the glass of wine. Then it's just a matter of setting the strobe using a light meter.

To Conclude

It's amazing how creative lighting techniques can really add drama to a shot. It may look like there was almost no lighting present here, when in actuality there was. Ron Goldman simply used a rim lighting effect to get this beautiful dark picture of a glass of red wine.