What’s different?
I used this technique for the dishes in two previous posts. Those had to do with flat-lay stacked compositions with dishware, so while this is similar, it’s not the same. We are looking at a vertically oriented image with the glass suspended on a frame. (See https://www.behmphoto.com/speckles and https://www.behmphoto.com/wasabi-green)
So, what are these?
The client’s product, the Adjust-A-Hook by Wolverine Plastics, really caught my attention. I purchased several following photography for their versatility, and had them in my kit for quite some time. I was able to adjust the tension on a bungee cord on the fly, which suited me perfectly for photo gear and for backpacking.
The “How-To” part
In this photo, the background is black seamless paper, about 6 feet behind the subject and lit with a deep blue gel on a White Lightning Ultra 1200 and a grid to reduce light spill. The use of black increases the saturation of the color but requires more power. If I had used gray seamless the effect could have been similar but the rapid fall-off to black in contrast with the white cords wouldn’t have been as dramatic.
The hooks on the cords have been hot glued to the same sheet of optically clear glass as was used with the dishes. Special clamps attached to light stands hold the glass vertically which allowed the cords to hang in a natural loop that had a pleasing roundness to it. In fact, the image as used on the flier has been rotated counterclockwise from the vertical by graphic designer Mike Reznor, and the bottom cropped off, which adds to the impact.
Lighting was, again, from very large diffused sources from either side in order to avoid reflections of the lights in the glass. Black gobos were used to prevent light spill onto the background, which woul have desaturated the effects. With such a raking side light, there is an added sense of 3 dimensionality in the hooks.
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