When we think about red wine we think about the colour red and warmth. But there is virtually no red visible in a glass or bottle of red wine, so the trick is to invoke the feeling of red and warmth into the shot.
Good product photography is often about invoking an emotion that suits the product or enhances it. So for this shot I built a simple set that would help invoke the emotion and warmth. The props were a walnut table top with a nice rich colour and wood grain, some old brown rope one hanging in the back and one on the table. Then a brown mottled background, I used a roll of leather but it could have been a painted canvas. Then of course the bottle and wine glass, which I chose to shoot at a very shallow depth of field just to isolate the bottle and label in the shot.
Once I had established a comfortable composition the next part is about creating the mood through lighting. This lighting set up uses several lights and modifiers so that I can carefully control the desired atmosphere.
The bottle is lit from my left with a large 120x180 softbox but this is softened slightly through LEE filters diffusion material to reduce the hard white edge reflection on the bottle. This light as you can see illuminates the entire bottle and the glass from my left. A carefully placed small white reflector throws some light back onto the shadow side of the label.
Notice the red glow on the glass and on the right side of the bottle, this is obviously completely unnatural but I used it to create the element of ‘red’ that is missing from red wine. I used a red gel on a P70 reflector shone through some diffusion material to achieve this.
To further isolate the bottle and glass I created a soft pool of light on the wooden surface around the bottle and glass. This was done with a honeycomb on a P70 from directly above.
The shallow depth of field allowed my table surface to blend smoothly into the background. This was illuminated with another P70 with a gel and grid shining up from below creating a glow of light behind the shoulder area of the bottle.
Finally a couple of Picolites were used to add some carefully placed illumination to the rope hanging in the background.
As with all good product photography lighting is key but you must give thought to the mood you wish to create before you start setting up your lighting. Know your lighting tools and then make them work for you.
