Water Carafe

What could be simpler than to take a simple prop, an Alessi water carafe and photograph it on a black velvet background ! Using natural light from a north facing set of windows it should be easy, you would think. However, when I looked at my histogram I could see that each exposure I took had blown highlights so much so that I underexposed by three stops and ended trying an HDR. I did not find that I lied the HDR offerings as they began to introduce coloured spots to the black velvet background. I have used one of my underexposed shots for the final image but even so I had to hold back the highlights. When you look at the image in detail ( see LARGE) you can see just how the light and reflections bounce around the carafe producing a whole range of effects. No wonder museum curators use light tents when they are photographing reflective objects. A simple blip with myriad effects.