From my Photography I portfolio at Allegheny College.
Project Statement
For this project, I focused on using unique lighting techniques and creating reflections to act as thematic elements throughout the photos. In some images, I use the absence of light to create an intense negative space. Where there is light, it is very bright creating a lot of contrast. The glass bottle itself creates a very interesting way to get reflections. Some reflections are very sharp, such as in the mirror, whereas some are very soft such as against the table. In both my image layouts, I utilized crushed shadows and blown highlights as a part of creating that negative and positive space as well as drawing the viewer's eye to those reflections and making them that much more striking.
In the first set of photos, I explored using multiple colors of bottles set in a dark background to make them pop. I use the reflection of the colorful bottles as a way to create a space that gradually shifts from color into darkness. I especially played with depth of field and focus in the first set of images as it changes between every image. The surrounding bottles are blurry in the background in one of the images, fully visible in another, and slowly fade into the background in the last image.
In the second set of photos, the color pallet is a lot more limited with using just one bottle of stones. For these photos, I experimented with how light reflects off of water, the bowl, and the bottle. I noticed 'rainbows' in the reflections of the water which I kept as a theme throughout the images. In one photo, I captured a large bokeh which I thought added to the mysterious tone. Overall, I used low exposure and reflections to bring out the mysteries of the bottle.