Five Tips for Better Beer Photographs https://fstoppers.com/education/five-tips-better-beer-photographs-262520

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Home Education
Five Tips for Better Beer
Photographs
by Scott Choucino
July 1, 2018
 8 Comments
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I am trying to brush up my photography skills in areas I am not overly
familiar with. This week it was beer photography, and boy did I learn a
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2. 7/5/2018 Five Tips for Better Beer Photographs | Fstoppers
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lot.
I have made it my
mission to do as
much personal work
and practice as
possible in 2018. No
amount of marketing
and networking will
ever replace a high
skill set and good
portfolio. In the U.K.
we have finally hit
summer and it's gloriously hot (for here). Summer always makes me
think of fresh cold beers in a small country pub beer garden, so I
thought I would take on the challenge of learning how to photograph a
pint of beer. Here are a few tips that I picked up to make your beer
photography better.
The Kit
Obviously you need a camera and lights, but I am going to assume
that if you are reading this that you already have those. Instead I am
going to talk to you about the styling kit. As a minimum, you are going
to want some form of spraying device. You probably already have
something in your house that can be used. In this you want to make a
mixture of glycerin and water. Somewhere around the 50-50 mark.
There is a lot of fine tuning that goes into this and most stylists will
never give up their secret recipe. This mixture gives the warm beer the
chilled look, but it also stays in place, unlike a beer from the fridge
which would drip and run. Alongside this a wooden chopstick is great
to stir the beer with. There is an enzyme in the wood that helps to
create a fizzy larger and a nice looking head. The final bit of kit is
masking tape. I used this to mask off the top of the glass before
spritzing it with the glycerine and water mix. It’s important to not have
the frosting effect at the top of the glass where the head is as naturally
it wouldn’t occur.
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Time
You will need time. It took me far longer than I anticipated, and I am
certainly not 100 percent happy with my final image, so it's more likely
to end up on Instagram than it is in my portfolio. I would set aside two
hours for an image like this. Trying to rush it will result in hours of
retouching. This image was just color corrected in Lightroom. Moving
a light one inch has a massive impact on the final image, so there was
a lot of trial and error as well as fine tuning.
Lots of Beer
I assumed I might need two pints of beer for this photograph. In reality,
I ended up wasting around six pints of beer. Obviously if this isn’t your
first time you will more than likely be more economical. However, if it is
your first go, make sure that you have plenty of beer sitting about.
Always buy more beer than you think you will need. Worst case
scenario, you can invite your friends over to help you finish off the
leftovers.
Three Photographers,
One Concept
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Polarizer
Photographing glass with studio lighting is a recipe for disaster. You
will be plagued with reflections and glare. Having both lens polarizer
and also polarizing gels for your flash will help you control these
issues. You can pick up both for very little money online. You get far
higher quality by spending more money on these items, but a budget
one will suffice. These are probably the most important bits of
photographic kit for this sort of work. You can get away with pretty
much any camera, lens, and lights, but without these it would be a
difficult task.
A Pipe
Once you have everything set up, you don’t want to move the glass
(smudging your beautifully crafted frosted glass is not ideal) each time
that you need to refresh the beer. Instead, use a length of pipe and a
bowl to siphon the beer into without touching the glass. Remember to
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8 Comments
Scott Choucino is a
professional portrait and food
photographer based in the UK.
Scott works predominantly as
an advertisement photographer
whilst running a series of
workshops from his Leicester
Studio throughout the year.
scottchoucino.com
More from Scott
Choucino
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Better
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have the vessel into which you are siphoning the beer lower than the
pint glass. Try to avoid drinking all of the beer during the shoot. Some
of the glycerine will end up in the drink and it has a catastrophic effect
on your bowls.
For those seasoned food and drink photographers out there, do you
have any tips? If you have a go at this, please post your images in the
comments.
Posted In: Education Food Fstoppers Originals
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Johnny Rico - 4 days ago
What, no foam stabilizer?
 0  0
John Dawson - 4 days ago [Edited]
A turkey baster also works as an inexpensive and efficient beer
pump to remove dead beer.
An alternative to the masking tape is to use a nitrile glove (cuff
over the glass). It fits snug and is easily removed without adding
residue and/or fingerprints. An added bonus is that you can
suspend and turn the glass by holding the fingers of the glove.
John
 1  0
John Dawson - 4 days ago
I think you meant "bowels", not "bowls". ;-)
 0  0
Hassan Zaki - 4 days ago
Glycerin does not have a catastrophic effect on your bowels. It's
actually edible and it's required in making fondant for cakes.
I never heard of the polarizer trick. I'll try that.
 0  0
Douglas Turney - 3 days ago
Great, now I want a beer!
 0  0
Ron Rasmussen - 3 days ago
rggedu.com has an excellent free tutorial on beer photography (it
is a huge download).
 0  0
Ben Brausen - 3 days ago  Ron Rasmussen
It's even free right now. Sweet, thanks!
 0  0
Ben Brausen - 3 days ago [Edited]
I know myself and folks at breweries have used these beer
foamers from Norm Architects to foam the beer up for shoots. It's
a silly gadget if you plan to drink the beer (although it does allow
more aromatics to escape and in places like Japan they love beer
foam) but they work great for putting a frothy head on a beer again
and again when shooting.
https://craftbeertime.com/beer-gadgets/beer-foamer
 0  0
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