Shiny Surfaces

Shiny surfaces are very difficult to shoot well. They reflect everything around them and therfore a special technique needs to exist in order to capture them professionally. The subject I chose to use is a stainless steel measuring spoon.

The first image is a photograph of the spoon under normal conditions without the use of flash. My camera and I can be clearly seen being reflected in the spoon's dome.

When flash is added, the results worsen.

The simple technique of creating a cone from translucent paper to place over the shiny subject improves the results dramatically. The wide end of the cone is placed over the subject and at the small end there needs to be a hole for the camera's lens. Keeping the same composition as above I have added a cone and taken a few shots to show it's effect.

The first shot shows what the spoon looks like using a cone and being flash from infront.

Flashed from the left.

Flashed from the right.

And finally, flashed from above.

It is incredibly difficult to obtain attractive and accurate shots of shiny objects, however, I feel that placing a cone of translucent paper over my subject and placing the flash above is the best technique.

With a lot of objects the reflection of the lens could be hidden by altering the composition. The shiny subjects position could be changed, other subjects could be placed in front of it and/or the camera could be moved to a different angle.