Wine: Trio of Swirling Wine Photos

[Mike Buckley]

Winery: Kim Crawford
Year: 2013
Grape: Sauvignon Blanc
Location: Marlborough region of South Island, New Zealand

Year after year, this wine is my go-to Sauvignon Blanc. It's not at all delicate; I love it's in-your-face style.

As in my other two series of red wine swirling in the glass, imagine these three photos hanging side-by-side on a wall, with the top one here on the far left and the bottom one here on the far right.

[Loose Canon]

It's not at all delicate; I love it's in-your-face style.

And if I may Mike?

These are much more "in your face" swirls! The colors, bubbles, swirls look great with this particular vintage.

If it were me I would clean up the outlines of the swirls a bit more to more clearly define them, some of the extraneous bubbles, lines, etc. on the rest of the glass so the glass would look clean outside of the all important swirl. Help isolate the beautiful swirl.

Very cool how the swirl and lighting is getting a background (light), shadow (dark), and color all in one bubble. No. 1 is the one I'm seeing this in the most.

Now I said what I wanted to try to do shooting opaque liquid splashes. Will you say what you wanted and what happened/didn't happen with these? And will I be able to read it all in one setting???

[Mike Buckley]

And if I may Mike?

Yes, you may, as always.

If it were me I would clean up the outlines of the swirls a bit more to more clearly define them, some of the extraneous bubbles, lines, etc. on the rest of the glass so the glass would look clean outside of the all important swirl. Help isolate the beautiful swirl.

Your and my approach are understandably different. As just one example, I'm not trying to isolate the swirl. Indeed, the swirl itself is not all-important for me as it is for you; the swirl is just one part of my own personal wine experience that I'm trying to convey. As another example, I'm not going for clear definition of the swirl; instead, I'm going for a wine photo that more represents the aesthetic I experience when swirling wine at the dinner table. That aesthetic is an ambiance that is the antithesis of precise definition.

As an example, one of the attributes of wine is the "legs" it has. The legs are the drips of wine on the side of the glass. Some wines have more legs and some have less. So, the legs and extraneous bubbles are part of the wine experience I'm trying to convey. To remove those characteristics for the purpose of drawing all of the attention to the swirl would, for me, be like drawing all the attention to the taste of the wine, ignoring the color, texture, body and aroma (not that my lousy nose ever allows me to enjoy the aroma).

The characteristic of these photos that is most surprising is the definition in the top rims of the glasses. These glasses have very thin rims and they are often a struggle to display throughout the entire rim when using continuous light, which is what I'm accustomed to using. There is something about using the speedlight that makes that problematic issue disappear.

The characteristic that I find most problematic is the grey tones in the wine, mostly because I haven't decided how much I like or dislike them or when I want to include or avoid them. When I first inspected photos of white wine, I explained in a thread at the time that almost all photos of white wine are taken straight on with no display of the top surface. I explained then that I think the reason is that photographers don't want to have to deal with the greyish tones that persist on the top surface of white wine or don't know how to deal with them; their solution is to ignore the problem altogether by shooting at a perspective that doesn't display the top surface of the wine.

I find those grey tones rather easy to deal with in a "still" shot. Yet in stop-action shots such as these, my solution when using still shots doesn't work. So, it's a matter of me deciding upon an aesthetic that works for me. Until I do so, I can always go for the look such as in the first photo that displays few grey tones.

Make sense?

[flashback]

Mike,
How hard is it to be you?
Me...I like wine. If it tastes good to me, I drink it. Legs be damned, wine should taste good, smell good and provide a mellow buzz. I couldn't tell you oakey from floral other than...me like (or me no likey). And this holds true for your triptych. Me likey.
I could go on and on about plumb, level, fit and finish but when it comes to wine I'm much less a d#*k. Your images never cease to amaze and be it one sentence or four paragraphs, I'm gonna like it or not regardless. In this case, as stated previously, me likey.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Jack!

I could go on and on about plumb, level, fit and finish

I could too. Nothing I would build would ever be plumb, level, properly fit or finished. Seriously. So, I really admire people who can make all of that happen.

[Mike Buckley]

When I showed these photos on the large television to my wife, she especially liked the bubbles outside the swirl, the grey tones in the wine, and the tones that convey the wine clinging to the sides of the glass. Everyone has their own way of looking at photos.

[Donald]

When I showed these photos on the large television to my wife, she especially liked the bubbles outside the swirl ...

I'd agree about that. I have to admit, however, that I keep going back to the first set in this series of wine-in-the-glass shots (that using ambient light only). That group set the benchmark for me.

[Shadowman]

Very nice, I can almost hear the wine pouring and moving around the glass.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Donald and John.

Donald: I'm going to make some more images in the style of the first set, as I like them for the same reason you explained in that thread. I'm thinking of various compositions and types of light to add variety.

[Mike Buckley]

Though the image below works fine for me on its own, I didn't initially post it because it doesn't work as well within a set of three images.