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Hi All,
I have a still life I would like to photograph that involves using fake blood. I am going to stamp a logo into the blood almost as if it was like a wax seal. I want to capture the red luminance of the blood and have been advised that I will need some sort of underlighting. I was initially thinking of spreading the blood out over the top of a lightbox (with ND covering the lightbox if neccessary) but was wondering how easy it would be to cut the rest of the lightbox out of the picture using photoshop (I don't want the white light as an element in the picture and was going to replace it with a black background). Ideally I would like to avoid having to change backgrounds in photoshop but am unsure about how I can use black when I need to underlight the blood. Any ideas?
Cheers
Paul Miller
Hi Paul
You need to use a technique called darkfield illumination. In essence, take a sheet of clear glass and raise it up above a black background. Position your lights at each side below the glass, aiming up at your subject.
Some useful hints:
- when I do this my sheet of glass is the glass door from a bookcase;
- to support the glass I find it useful to use video cassettes (they are all the same thickness, so it is much easier to ensure that each corner of the glass is at the same height than trying to use a load of books);
- ensure that the glass is scrupulously clean (any dust or smears will be very clearly illuminated);
- take care that light does not spill on to the lens.
Good luck
John
Hi John,
Thank you for your great advice. This is great to know. The idea had crossed my mind but I didn't think it could be done because I thought that in shooting through the glass it would be too difficult to avoid reflections from the lighting appartatus. Is it just a case of trial and error and tweaking the lights so that they're not reflected in the glass whilst also maintaining enough and the right kind of light from underneath? In your post you mentioned that you used glass from a book case. Are some types of glass easier to shoot through depending on their thickness etc? Is there any non-reflective glass that would help also or is this not an issue if I play about with the lights as mentioned before? Also, I would imagine I need a toplight above the glass. Would is be possible to light from above the glass without getting horrible 'hotspots' reflected? Many thanks for your help.
Cheers
Paul
Hi Paul,
This is where Digital comes into its own 
You can take the photo check for hotspots and if there are any, move teh lights and try again.
I've had to do this to take images of Yeast cultures in Petri dishes . . . God how boring . . . and the bes things I found for it were the fluorescent Desk Lamps (The PL tubes) Give a very even illumination, I have two positioned either side, and a third above and slightly behind the camera this means that the top light won't reflect off the glass. A black velvet cloth is ideal for a backdrop as it photographs 2 stops darker than other material (Sounds dumb right)
Darkfield is great to play with and super for photographing jewellery, you just need to play around to get teh result you want.
Regards
Tony
Paul
You don't need to worry about reflections because the lights are below the glass. Any light that is reflected from the glass would be reflected down onto the background - you wouldn't see it in the image. Just position the lights well to each side so that there is no danger of them appearing in the image or throwing light directly onto the lens. Only if, as Tony mentions, you have a light above the glass do you have to consider the possibility of reflections.
I haven't experimented with different types of glass. I suppose that glass with any colour to it might change the colour of your subject. As I mentioned before, just make sure that the glass is absolutely clean so that unwanted dust or marks don't appear in the image.
John
Thank you very much John and Tony. That is fantastic advice and you've answered all my questions. The rest is up to me and playing about a bit but your advice has given me the confidence to go forward with the project knowing that if I perservere with it I will get good results from that technique. Many thanks.
Paul
Of course the other alternative to a light above teh glass is a reflector . . . You still get reflections though 
again tilt it so that it thows light away from the camera to the rear of the subject and you'll be fine
Looking forward to seeing the pics
Regards
Tony
Will do Tony. Should be finished in about 3 to four weeks though because I'm gathering all the bits together which is taking time and got quite a bit of work on. I will contact you when done. Thank you.
Paul
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