Another school assignment: Glass.

I can't believe how fast November flew.   I've only got 2 weeks left of class and am shooting my final assignment pieces.  Here's the most recent one we've critiqued.  The assignment: photograph something glass.

I chose this Paris Amour perfume from Bath & Body works for a few reasons, none of which were that I wear perfume.  

1.  The bottle was cute and I liked the pink.  

2.  The name Paris Amour was a nice jumping off point for loads of ideas.  

3.  It was $15 for the set.  

4.  I needed a perfume that would look nice with the vintage lace I wanted to use.   

5.  Perfume seemed more exciting than any other glass things I own.

As usual, the first shot is a standard product shot - simple and lit with extreme attention. 

Glass is tricky because it's really easy to just make things flat.   You have to add black, reflecting in the glass, to be able to get some definition back.   I had originally propped a necklace with the bottle, but ultimately it didn't add anything.  

The second phase of the assignment was to shoot more conceptually and creatively.  I had a lot of fun playing with this.  Some times more successfully than others.

I started with the bottle lying on some fabric with a Paris map print.  I don't even think I printed this to bring to class. 

On my way home from work the next day I grabbed some roses, and tried this.

The roses and bottle are on a piece of glass, which is about a foot above a white dish with rose petals in the water. 
At the critique this one was tossed aside because "what you see through the bottle looks like crap."

Live and learn.  Next time I should have the bottle even higher than the roses and no clutter near the logo.

This next one was hugely time consuming.  I put the bottle on a sheet of sparkly black paper, turned off all the lights, put on black gloves and painted the light into the photo with a flashlight.  This one my prof just LOVED.   Everyone in class tried to guess how I did it.  I'm still not satisfied with the bottom 1/4 of the photo, but in my 200+ attempts at getting the swooshes to land in the right place, this was the best one.

My personal favourite shot is actually this one.  The bottle was on the same sparkly black paper, and I used the flashlight to illuminate the area behind the bottle to get the sparkles to shimmer. 

It reminds me of Paris at night, all twinkly and magical.

Which one do you think works best?  Would any of them make you want to try the perfume?