Wine Bottle Lanterns/Candle Holders

[WineDeLights]

Hello Everyone!

These are some new Wine Lanterns that I have made.

I am having so much trouble with the pictures though.
Does anyone have any suggestions? I have tried taking pictures of them inside, outside, on a cloudy day, on a sunny day, in the morning, in the evening...haha.
The glare is too much in my opinion.
Help please.
 
Here are the pictures:

[scottie]

I love it! That is super cute!

[CrazyEyeGlass]

Very cool! I have the same glare problem photographing my glass, but I think your pix turned out really well!

[DoodleLou]

The best photos I've taken of my glass is with no camera flash on a cloudy day.  But you're still going to get some glare but not as much.

Those lanterns are pretty nifty.  Great idea there!

Did you cut the bottoms off the wine bottles?  What did you use to cut it evenly?  I've been wanting to cut off and cut up wine bottles but haven't been able to do it nice and neatly.

[WineDeLights]

Hello all!
Thanks for the sweet comments.

I used a tile saw to cut off the bottoms of the bottle. They are pretty easy to use and they have a guideline so you can cut the bottle fairly evenly. I then sand away with emery cloth. 

[DoodleLou]

Ahh...a tile cutter.  I see.  Rats.  Sounds expensive.    And probably is. Too bad my Mr. won't suddenly see a need for us to have one of those.  I'm going to have to find another way to cut bottles.

THanks for the answer!

[WineDeLights]

They are pretty expensive. I got mine for $80 at Home Depot. I thought this was a reasonable price. The blade was included as well.
Instead of cutting them with a tile saw, you can use a glass scorer. This makes a faint line, it kind of etches the glass a little. Then you apply direct heat, like from a candle, along the line. You do this pretty slowly around the line for a good 5 minutes. Then you immediately submerge the bottle or whatever you scored in cold water. It will break off at the line. It is pretty hard though. I tried this for some of the bottles but it didn't come out to good.

[Mike Jordan]

You did a pretty good job on them.  Nice way to recycle used bottles too. 

On your lighting question, you need diffusion. Diffusion is what you get on a cloudy day. The clouds diffuse the sunlight and spread it out so there no hot spots. This is also why your shadow is so dim or nonexistent on a cloudy day, the lights so diffused it's not strong enough to create one.

A good way to diffuse a flash or lamp lights or even the sun if you don't have clouds, is to put something white and translucent between your glass and the light source.  This can be a white cloth, white paper, frosted plastic sheets (like shower curtains), etc.  Or, if you can't put something between, then turn the light so it bounces off something white... a white wall, a piece of White cardboard, a white painted board, etc.  For smaller things, you can even use white frosted milk jugs, frosted Tupperware (other brands work just as well if they are clear frosted or white) and even white coffee filters (unused of course ). 

The idea is to spread out the light as much as possible and going through things or bouncing off things will do that to light.

I have a light tent that I use sometimes (when I'm not to lazy to get it out and set it up) but what I use to use a lot was light panels. These were made using the window screen kits you can buy at Lowes and Home Depot that comes with 4 aluminum bars that you cut to the size of your window and add screen. It has a rubber band you push into the grove around the bars to tighten it and hold it in place.  What I do is not cut the bars and I use white nylon material (you can get it at JoAnn's) instead of the screen.  This makes some very good 4'x4' light panels that I can use to shine my light through or even as backgrounds. The light is very very soft coming through them which is what you want for glass and metal and other shiny things.  I've also made larger light panels out of PVC pipe. I made one that was 6' tall by 4.5' wide and had to sections so it could be free standing (like the Japanese screens you can buy for room dividers or dressing areas).  You can do a lot with PVC and white nylon or white cotton or polyester or other white translucent material.  And the light is excellent for a lot of things.

If nothing else, even some tissue works real well to diffuse light. Unused of course.

Mike

[DoodleLou]

Hey Mike, thanks for the great description/how to on photographing glass. Very clear and concise.  And a huge-mongous help.   

[tink22]

those are cool...