Photographing glass objects is always a complicated task because of the reflective surface and at the same time translucent nature, of this material. The catalog images with great glassware perfectly illuminated, are usually done with complicated setups, in studios that allow the control of reflections, and lighting equipment with accessories that are not accessible to most photographers.

The first step and a really important one may I add, is to clean the glasses really well, as any dirt in the glass will be visible in the image. Toilet paper and glass cleaning fluid are a good choice to get rid of spots or smudges, and compressed air can be a good choice to get rid of dust specks.

Even though camera flashes are very low power compared to studio units, they have more than enough power for this kind of setup and are an accessible and simple solution.

You will need to use the white cardboard as the background, and one flash with a diffuser on each side of the glass, illuminating the background evenly. This simulates the use of a softbox as a backlight in a really simple way.

It is important to have a large depth of field to get well-defined glass edges (including the backside of the glass) and to use the highest sync speed for your flash/camera combination to avoid the ambient light making a reflection and changing the color temperature of the image.

The black background image might seem a lot more complicated, but actually, it’s as simple as cutting a hole in your white cardboard, that will function as an open window for the black background.