Oye, this was a challenge getting this shot right.
I bought a softbox tent off of eBay in order to replace the one I made at home that sucked. When I got the softox I was impressed by the size and portability of it, so I am happy with my purchase.
I set the softbox up on my kitchen table with three flashes aimed at it. My Sigma 500 flash was in the rear lighting up the background to get rid of the wrinkles and make this a little more high-key. My two Vivitar 283's were on the sides amied at the center.
I started by focusing on the shot glass with the live view. Each time I shot this scene (and it was many) I refocused on the glass with live view. As we spilled the water we would clean it all up and that meant moving the shot glass, and hence the refocusing.
We then added the bottle of Soju. We started by having my spousal unit try to plug the end of the bottle and then move her thumb away in time to get the photo, but her thumb didn't quite cover the opening. So, we had to settle with her pouring the Soju in the glass. Needless to say, she missed more times than she made it. Go back to what I was saying about having to refocus everytime and you will get the idea.
Anyways, This was the best shot for the motion in the glass. She would pour and I woudl wait a split second before firing the shutter. Since we were using lights, burst mode wasn't an option.
Post processing was lightening the background some more. Then bumping the green saturation to make the bottle glow a little more. Then I did a levels layer with multiply and masked out the background and the label on the bottle. I did another layer with screen to make sure my background was white. I had to clone out a few water drops and some water rings on the wood.
Of course I resized, sharpened and saved for web.
Overall this was a challenging experience and when I look at the image, a rewarding one. Unfortunately I am quite sure that this will not be the only water pouring shot in this challenge. So, I lack originality, but the Soju makes up for that!
note: the writing on the glass and bottle are the same. The Soju came from the Doosan Soju factory that we toured on Monday the 11th of November. The Soju and shot glasses were free gifts to us.
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