I was looking through one of my old portfolios and I came across a series of photographs that I thought would make an interesting post for this blog, even though it is not an architectural photography post. As most photographers who have been in business for over 30 years, I have done a great variety of work throughout my career.

In the fall of 1999 I was hired to produce a series of five beverage photographs for Courvoisier Cognac’s Millennium promotion. The typical cognac drinker was a 50+ white male and Courvoisier wanted to increase their market share with the younger crowd. I was given the drink recipes and asked to produce a stylish, colorful image of each drink.

I spent two days experimenting with different looks before I came up with the green drink with the yellow background. That gave me the look I was after and the other drinks were photographed in a similar style. Two identical glasses were used for each photograph. One glass was placed upside down on a stand and the other glass was placed right side up on the base of the upside down glass. A large sheet of white plexiglass was placed 3 feet behind the glasses and a large piece of black velvet cloth was placed between the glasses and the plexiglass. The 4x5 camera was set up, the drink was poured and the studio lights were turned off. The shutter was opened and the exposures were made for the glass and the liquid. Then the shutter was closed and the lights turned back on. I removed the black velvet, backlit the plexiglas with lights covered with colored gels, cocked the shutter, turned the lights off and made the exposures for the background. All of the images were captured on 4x5 transparency film (Fuji Velvia) and there was no retouching or digital manipulation of any kind.

I love the flexibility and control that we now have with digital capture, but there is something very rewarding about capturing a complex image on a sheet of film with no retouching.