Red

Yesterday’s blip was a quick pop outside the front door and one press of the camera shutter. It was a busy day so I didn’t have time for anything more than that. Today I wanted to make up for yesterday’s slackness!

 It was quite fiddly to set up this shot and get the lighting right. I hung some Christmas lights from the roof of the garage and set up the champagne and red  hearts some way in front of them on one of Igor’s workbenches. I jiggled and fiddled until the lights were lined up with the top of the champagne glass. It took a while to get the light on the subject so that the background (Igor’s shelves and tools) didn’t show up. A candle wasn’t bright enough so I ended up holding a torch with my left hand so that the beam shone onto the bottle. I think photographers should all be issued with an extra hand just for occasions such as these. In the first few shots the glass looked wrong because it was empty so I had to root out a bottle of elderflower presse which has bubbles and is about the right colour. It was finally beginning to come together.

I probably took about twenty shots in all which was less than I would have thought  and it probably took me about an hour to get the shot I wanted but I spent an extra half hour of time cleaning up the garage floor after I knocked an empty champagne bottle off a bench and then another frustrating twenty minutes trying to get the string of lights back into the box they came in. 

When I’d cleared everything away I realised that it would have looked more authentic if the champagne bottle had been open. I’m still kicking myself because I had an empty champagne bottle sitting on a bench just waiting for somebody to accidentally knock it off!! Now I’ll have to have another go at this sometime. Maybe when the bottle in the shot has been opened and emptied (not too long to wait then!!).