Recruited again to shoot wine for friends at their East Coast vineyard, I was keen to do something different.
On pondering the options, we retired to the old cellar tasting room, set up some mono blocks set to warm colour and tried some ideas.
One bottle was ok, the ancient walls adding much, but there was something missing.
More bottles maybe?
A splash more light on the wall behind.
A change of angle?
Then another few with single bottle and the green cloth with a vat behind.
And a few more singles with different light.
The crew were happy, I was also, especially the change of style from previous outdoor shoots.
Ok, time to ‘fes up.
Looking for a better idea than previously, armed with a Pen-F, a couple of primes and a small 60cm 5-in-1 reflector/diffuser, I noticed walking up the hall from our bedroom, that the shower cubicle was pebble walled with a reasonably flat concrete base.
Grabbing my “crew”, consisting of a clever 10 year old and my meagre kit, we played around with several angles with the gold, then silver reflector, settling on the gold, using window light.
The whole job took 20 minutes in a 6x6ft space, with minimal gear, a team of two and no, there is no ancient “cellar”. The bottle, more often than not, is covering the outlet drainage hole.