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Shoot: Beer Bottle Reflecter Cards

Lesson 23 from: How to Be a Commercial Photographer

Rob Grimm, Gary Martin, Aaron Nace

Shoot: Beer Bottle Reflecter Cards

Lesson 23 from: How to Be a Commercial Photographer

Rob Grimm, Gary Martin, Aaron Nace

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Lesson Info

23. Shoot: Beer Bottle Reflecter Cards

Next Lesson: Shoot: Beer Glasses

Lesson Info

Shoot: Beer Bottle Reflecter Cards

Now I'm going to start to try to catch the light to come through that first bottle so I'm going to shoot the bottle on the right initially uh putting a silver card in there we're going to see what happens with that okay? You want papa for food? Not bad. Okay let's turn it and try their please no let's try that let it go purple stuff the flare going into the lens I think I hit it right that's kind of interesting. What do you say that like it's glowing we've got so one of things I'm liking about this that's okay, um zoom out for me so one of things I'm liking about this there's a nice little glow that's coming in on this side it's getting a little bit darker there and then we've got a good hit of light on that right side as well that bottle's feels like it's got some volume in some shape to make anybody else see that run through the last three that I have with the card so I could take a look at him wait pull the magnifier on the way thank you alright go through again was all that coming ...

off the card to make the whole thing flare like hail all right, I'm gonna try a couple em to try a couple things so let's pop it they're way too tall can go that way because that way so what I'm doing now is I'm making very small, incremental moves of the card behind the bottle I just want to see what I get by going in different directions let's try to catch the opposite light I can't do this without screwing up another bottle thank you who path you like what you think of that guy? Oh, do you love it? Okay, so that's got some real interest that's really glowing you can you can see how the bottle has changed a pull up little purple violation there was blowing that hunker out that's the cobol taking on too much light and it's completely flipping it out of the way. Coming right down. You got a question when you executing something that doesn't require seeing their reflection? Is there any merit to shooting on a transparent service and lighting bottles from below? You would think that that would work it doesn't necessarily translate that way. Um, the liquid actually has to have its again angle of incidence equals angle of reflecting. So when you're lighting straight up, really your best view of that light would be straight up on the ceiling looking down. I mean, you would think that that would that would be the case that works actually very well on video because your naked eye kind of sees it and so that like kind of works but it doesn't translate the same in flash. You've got to have something that brings it back through and back down into the camera again. It's that same principle light angle of incidence equals angle of reflective. What do you thoughts on that? That only thing out there, just maybe this monitor is a little high. I mean, I was just worried about reading the label. Me, like monitor glowing a little too much like on this monitor. It's like it's, really hard to read, but allowing it looks that when it looks really nice. Well, what's happening there is that the platinum is actually lighting up from the inside, which looks really weird. I like what's going on with the body and the body, I think that's pretty sweet, so we could use that as the body, but not label. Yeah, sure. I mean, I don't mind the sun like some of the glowing for the you know, the word for platinum, but it just might be able to do much let's. Let's, mark that, gary for the liquid interior. All right. And then let's, go back a couple and see if we have one for the actual front label that we like that's gonna work, yeah, like that's much better so for readability, yeah, so that we're gonna ground for the interior so what we're doing here is we're looking at components again I'm breaking this bottle down into components on this shot excuse me on this shot with where the bottle was really glowing and we loved it. The interior of that silver was lining up and the and the letters in between were lighting up and it was looking really bizarre it was it was glowing too much, so we're gonna take this logo on the front and we're gonna drop that in on the on the other bottle and we're going to mix those two together, so you've got then a really good front label and you've got a good bottle liquid coming through it. This is glowing enough, you rob one of the challenges our differences between photographing the blue bottle versus of regular brown your bottle the blue bottle is tougher because it's so much darker kind of doesn't look like it to your naked eye. You think that a brown bottle would be as dark it's? Not the brown bottle actually is much more amber in its tone, particularly if you look at it when it's empty are you hold it up to light it's much more amber and the beer is also amber, so the color just kind of comes up naturally you actually have amber liquid with a blue bottle and those two colors fight each other so they actually get money when you put light through that the amber and them and the blue are just fighting each other there competing so it makes it much harder to light the interior the bottle that's why I want these kobol bottles or some of the hardest bottles to shoot yeah, we're looking at the neckar and um this one we shot six ago it's not bad it's got a little little purple but well it's also not tak I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to ship my shift my focus back a little bit and get that get that neck a little bit tax so well we might want to do is go ahead we can bump that bud light up I don't like the light on it is awful but I think it's going to need to be pushed up right okay um go ahead and blow that up for me push this is the last one you like for the label. Okay? That's better tonight can I see the bud light there? Yeah that's a little bit better we still want to grab that and bring it up, don't you think yeah. Hang on one second, let me, uh let me pop a card in there and see if I can't get a little bit more light on that bud light so carey let's try that one yeah, uh I'll operator little different. It actually looks plate, actually, you know what? Gary that's, our hero for the front label together. Everything looks better. The silver looks better in the entire deal. So, that's now we're going to switch that that's gonna be our hero. Um, let me shift my focus ever so slightly. So the top of that neck comes in focus, and we're gonna grab another one eyes there any gaff up there? Andy? Can I have a little bit? So what I'm gonna do right now is I'm going to prevent myself from making a very critical island in one piece. Thank you. Uh, gonna prevent myself from making a critical mistake? And that is when you've got a zoom lens, you can usually grab the wrong thing when you go to focus. The last thing I want to do right now when we're when we're really starting to work our way through this whole composition, I don't want to accidentally change one millimeter. I've just made it. If I do, I've made it exponentially harder for my re toucher. In fact, I have done that before. I've grabbed the wrong thing thinking I was on the focus ring and I was on the zoo, marie, I went back and I started it over. Because I want this to be a z z as it can be for my retouching to go ahead and lay one thing next now as it has changed my focus the size of things are in fact changing but not drastically the way that would be if you were actually changing your zoom ring so this little piece of tape is going to save us some headache let's give that a look for focus at the top that's a whole lot better as sure okay, I'm gonna add this card back in on that necker to see if it matches down below I don't think the light there is actually bad but let's see if we get a little bit more on it no no put a line in and I don't like what's try let's try that please see I said please it's nice you want to be polite that's pretty sexy so that's that's got that platinum that looks good yeah okay platinums done on bottle number one so I think our director don't know e I say that but I gotta check with the client right? We gotta make sure that he's happy we like that for the label and the bottle part of the neck yeah, that I think that looks good for the neck um make a note for erin that the neckar label is crooked and we're gonna have to straighten it in fact hold on a second are we are we lined up? Is that necker off to I need to rotate the bottle it'll do you want to be square I mean it's pretty straight and I don't want I don't want the bottle to be you know if necessary square but it's pretty close so the other thing I'm doing since this is a production bottle and labels were just stuck on by the machines I'm checking to make sure if my based label and my neck label are in a line we have often shot production bottles where they're off so we shoot for the base label and then we turn the neck and we get the neck a label so it because it should be straight on top are we pretty close you know, zoom back out a little bit I mean this line were going pretty well that is yeah okay if that's straightened up I think we're all right right pat you agree? Yeah. Okay, so we're good so we don't need we don't need to change that but we want to double check that stuff to make sure. So now I'm gonna go from bottle number two anybody have any questions right now? I have a question rob you're saying a few minutes ago that this is different than shooting a brown beer bottle? Do you normally shoot all the different separate components of the label like you're doing right now with the brown bottle is that something that's kind of specific to this because it's a little bit different no no no we shoot for different pieces of bottles all the time like you know the budweiser bottle that you saw in the portfolio um we definitely shot for the glow coming through the liquid we shot for the main front label we put in gold cards to reflect the gold leaf that's on the barley that's on that front label and then we did the same for the neck label s so that you know there's a least five components to go into that so we're building the perfect beast uh house my focus on that police carry back yeah and just before we go any further so I know for the right and left edge yeah, the ice which file do you want to use? Wasn't it the one below? Yeah let's see well that might we're gonna have a we're going to do because we have to strip the card out. We also have a beer to write this we just have to make a note and go back which which edge of the beer we're going to use? Let me see him all the way with the beer no, I want to see the last few okay, I'm asking rob because obviously we can't use these because the ice disappears so I want to make sure that erin has the files he needs to build the right side of the bottle probably that one okay, so I know that there is going to be a beer here so those gold tones should be coming through here so we wanna wait and pull it off one of those uh if we see it I don't know that we're going to see a ton of it but yeah, we can we can take a look at it so it's not a bad thought hold that what's mark this is our first ej option in case we want it and if we decide we want it'll definitely be for the left edge if we want it the right one with the gold tones well, grab a different frame for that so again, gary is really thinking there he's double checking my work he knows exactly what it is I'm trying to accomplish and he's thinking hey, rob, you might be forgetting something here let's go back and just make sure we're getting what you want because we don't want to then turn it over to aaron and have him be like uh that kind of doesn't work the silver car completely blows out all of the the ice on the edges and that would make it impossible if we were using that as our final image to strip about it somebody else have a question I'm gerri shall we try to get the glow on the back bottle yep so let me just check focus it looks like you're maybe slightly soft damn all right um hold on let me see where the neck always no no I am yeah um you know what I didn't just die optimum my my eye that would have something to do with it tell me if that's in uh I think it's closer but not did you fire one that's a good point I was just making sure rob's paying attention I like that I like to test him from time to time and then I give him points at the end of the day yeah sure that's better so all cameras have diop is right and this hospital has sent us to us and I did not do justice to my I and you know here in a pro but I'm just thinking about as if it was my own camera so that's probably why I'm slightly back to focusing on having an issue almost every time so thankfully with a program like this you can check everything and we do there's there's nothing that we shoot that we're not checking the focus to make sure we're were dead on all right rotation good on that bottle okay um so gary police mark that is base based file and let's go ahead and go out and I want to start to go with the silver cards on approach it from the other side from the walk around here quick question from paretti photo do you ever use mirrors or just reflective no I don't use mears mears or way too harsh um the light is way too strong and just totally blows out in fact a lot of these cards have very degrees of um a surface that's a little you know a little bit more frosted and others well very often will play with the one that that seems to fit right for the beer bottle uh if you have something that's just to mirror like or two shiny it's gonna really wreak havoc and not look very good on the final image just creates too much contrast okay pop that police let zoom out okay that does not have a let's try that let's try that guy who is this it's very nice that's beautiful I like it so is it flair oh no that's nice it's firing up there that's okay we'll grab another I don't know I think it's flaring okay it's looking a little too hot boyle actually you know I don't know thiss line I know we've got a combination of a couple of things going I actually like it we could always push the contrast yeah it's how what do you think I mean I can see what they talking is not gonna be that that would be for basically the interior of the bottle it is not I'm fine with that. All right isolate let's mark that for bottle interior bottle legal and we've got to do another where is the is the next sharp um yeah that's pretty good. Okay, how's the snack what this next curious could be sharp rookies back in on the next level we're gonna have to push like okay, I'm going to say that I got a weird it's like a lark halo it's reflecting the cobol father next to it so we're going we'll hold a white card so what pad is saying is that the neckar label on the second bottle is reflecting the blue from the front bottle and it's just kind of broken so what I'm going to wind up doing is holding the silver card and backwards so the white side is showing up and I'm going to block the front bottle so we get that that necker to glow um how does the to me right now the front label of that bud light looks pretty damn awesome. Does it look like that to you? We're we're looking good on it. Uh, yeah, you feel like it matches the other that's rose? I mean, you know that's better there's a ta that's better this is what we used for this one now right now it's neck label um right bottle so eighty five right there okay, then let's, pop, let's, pop home with white card and see what we get. So I'm going to very gingerly get this white card in here and try not to mess up my slush was card blocking the um yeah, that made it worse. It made it worse. Not as optimal, not as gingerly is. We'd like to try that, please. It's pretty clean and try that, please. So what I'm doing now is I'm being very cautious to not mess my card up by getting it in the sprits of the front bottle. I want to keep that bottle queen, and I'm just bending the card ever so slightly I think both, and I'm not going to pull this out until I know that we've got something that's happened like, we're not quite there. This isn't as radiant. Yes, is the other bud light? Yeah, I know that we're gonna get it quite as radiant. We may have to, um, cheated on coast let's. See if we can get this to go there. This to go. They're excellent use of the english language. Oh, bad. Okay, okay. So what I'm trying to do is create a way for this card to catch that light, sell us. Basically what I was doing was trying to get that card in a good position and curve it around so it caught the light the light kind of transfers down that whole white and it goes in and it lights up that bud light as much better I was thinking that was for the bud light itself okay like there I see that's got volume too because the d a and the t r brighter than the being the l it just kind of wraps around and it helps give the bottle volume it makes it much more shape with going back to being sculpture that cool? Yeah. No, I think it's awesome. Um what do you think about beer force? Should we give him a world wave that was just for bud light or platinum underneath it? Um because it's kind of it's a little bit brighter here and then you see, I was thinking that that was for bud light. I thought that I had gotten a platinum earlier when I had the car all the way in and down but you have I don't have one march let's come back we have gone left bottle the left bottle glow let's go let's, go back through and look and take like what about that? That was you know, that should be good for platinum that isthe so that'll be for the front platinum on the back wall so him was shooting lots of different pieces lots of different components were making decisions as we shoot for what goes where writing it all down so when we turn it over to aaron or any re toucher they know how to handle these files and it helps us keep our you know, our checklist straight we know we're getting every element that we need you feel like we're cool and that we could move on way needed the neck of this bottle correct way haven't re focused for the neck or letting up the platinum appear right uh I don't know is it good we had a separate goes pusher go down to two more I know we had a separate one on the other one I'm sorry the opposite way to the other one more one more yeah, we got a clear line that doesn't look very good okay you're right let's grab let's see if we can grab another platinum platt so this is for the platinum necker, right? Yep and let me tell you when the fire please okay, so I'm again I'm gingerly holding this card in here trying to make sure that I don't mess anything up I mean I'm not even looking at the monitor or you are we seeing anything good? Mmm no not quite what you think that that was kind of it's close? Yeah try that for me please that doesn't want teo this one time I get a lot of good to get that line back if I if I come into a point that's good I mean that's that could be taken care of right that you like it I mean I like they're having a you know, a darker side on the lighter side right just because it allows it to wrap around I mean instead of just being really what let's try this I'm sure I'm blocking some of the lands of hole so close yeah because because of my camera angle I'm never going to get in there completely without causing some sort of a headache for that that label and see if I could get it from this side what sorry, I don't think I got it I think I've kind of got to go here and fire that guy okay let's try right there it's pretty good yeah that's sweet, more subtle we can we can make that line a little more subtle on post like fix it in post question way might be a little soft on the neck here. What do you think shizzle way haven't re focused for the neck, right? Uh you're right when you're doing this robbed you have again do you have sort of ah secret system that you're using inside of your head or is this just totally buy? I'd intuition when you're moving the reflektor card around um it is by eye, and it is by memory of doing this a lot of times. So what I'm doing is I'm trying to shape that card in order to catch the light and let the light kind of smooth around it. This one's a little bit difficult for me, because in order to really get it to glow, I'm going to put my card right in front of camera. So I'm actually at it at an angle where I'm really kind of, you know, my lens is my problem. S o, I'm going to get it as close as I can actually carry, go ahead and pop this and see from unfocused, so, you know, I'm going out and getting it as close as I can, but this is all really done out of, you know, kind of muscle memory, so to speak, you're focused, experience, that's, a lot sharper. You want to relate this, let me go and shoot that again.

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Ratings and Reviews

Totoo
 

I have gratefully been watching this tutorial for free online, and as always CreativeLIVE has done an awesome job in bringing one of the best instructors of the trade and his creative team to help us improve and enjoy a higher level of understanding and performance in the skills we would like to achieve. I am humbled as always and ever so grateful. I would love to purchase the course myself, but since I live abroad, it is practically impossible, I hope those who can, would. I would just like to add one of the most interesting things I have learnt from this course is the careful attention these guys are paying to minute details and the amount of patience it takes to achieve their goals in each project. Stay inspiring, Totoo in China

Ivan
 

Outstanding course! I'm a former creative director, now photographer full time and have had the unique experience working with studio photographers for commercial products in the past. This course is right on and very close to my experiences, and now that I'm behind the camera, it's nice to see some of those trade secrets revealed. Commercial work is fussy and you often have to sweat the details, but the results can be astonishing and rewarding. Rob and Gary do an excellent job explaining the ins and outs, without any pretention or hold-back on secrets. Something that's always annoyed me in the past, photographers never liked revealing their process. It's great fun watching Rob and Gary work a shoot, and Aaron Nace is beyond amazing in his retouching skills. I don't expect to break into this field, but I wanted to learn how things are done, for my own personal projects. I particularly enjoyed learning how they get the look of ice, ice crystals, and frost on the sides of glass bottles. I purchased several items from Trengrove, as they suggested. Their acrylic products are not cheap, but the quality is amazing and I'm very pleased and looking forward to experimenting. Thanks to all at Creative Live, RGG studios and Aaron Nace for this presentation.

Doors of Imagination Photography
 

This course is outstanding. I would consider it an advanced level. Having a good understanding of the technical aspects of photography and lighting is recommended. Rob Grimm takes you into two real product shoots. These were not canned demonstrations, but the real thing including working to get the lighting setup just right. The postproduction section with Aaron Nace was enlightening. This does require a good preliminary understanding of Photoshop. It was amazing to watch them build the final images for the client in real time. This is by far my favorite course to date.

Student Work

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