Shooting Whiskey...

... with a camera!

I found a bottle of Maker's Mark Whiskey in my parent's liquor cabinet and decided it needed to be photographed.

Here was my first test shot, with some white foam core I have leftover from a project. I tried to use it to reflect light from the bottom, but it ended up being more distracting than helpful, so I nixed it.

I realized what I needed was some light shining through the bottle, so I grabbed one of my hotlights and tried a few angles to see how I could light the liquid. Aside from the failed exposure, I didn't like this shot because the light shone through on only part of the label. So I moved it to underneath the bottle as seen here:

I'm using 1 SB600 with my ghetto-dish (tupperware + paper) and a white foam core reflector.
I borrowed a few members from my mom's nativity scene to hold up the reflector:

They did a great job.

Moving floodlight to underneath the bottle gave me light that worked much better, without making weird highlights on the inside of the label. Then it was just a matter of mixing the ambient and the strobe to get something that worked alright.
I ended up at 1/13 second at f/4, ISO 200.

Here's the final product!

30 minutes to set up, shoot and tear down. Good thing too; I'm not sure my mom loved me having a studio set up in the living room.

Also, I downloaded the Strobox app free for iPhone/iPod Touch. Works like a charm

One of these days I'll get some gels for my flash... I would have liked to make it a bit warmer to complement the flood light... oh well.