Lancome Mascara and liquid drops

This is a quick walk-through for the Lancome shot you see right below:

The Lancome Shot

The shot was staged in a 3 different sets: The mascara alone, then the mascara in a water and drops of liquid gels in a water. All of them were necessary and none of them could be combined in one shot.

Lets go through each stage and I’ll you everything.

First part, the mascara tube.

 The mascara tube itself is a combination of 3 shots. Here is the lighting setup:

The lighting setup for lancome liquid splash shot

2 striboxes on sides, slightly behind the tube created the edge reflection  on our subject. I’ll talk about top one later.
Because of the shape of the tube, I couldn’t have it on a table, as the bottom part of the tube was reflecting even the smallest table. Therefore a stick was used, tube was standing on it. Exactly like this:

So, with 2 lights on a sides and tube on a stick we got this:

Almost everything looks pretty cool as-is, except the golden label. Because it is engraved on the body, there was no way to get a reflection on it without getting reflection on a tube itself. So, I did these two shots, each had top light turned ON and reflector on upper portion (first shot) and lower portion (second shot) of the frame:

label reflectin shot

label reflectin shot

Reflector clearly visible on both shots, it was Photoshop task to take labels from these shots and put them on a final composition. 

Second Part, the tube and the liquid.

Because subject suppose to be standing in the water, we did this additional shot of the tube on a black glass, covered with tiny layer of the water. I’ve used a small amount of putty to create a little borders on front and on both sides of slightly tilted on front glass plate, making water to stay there.

Filling with the water

And below is what I was needed from this shot: the bottom of the tube, surrounded by the water:

the bottom of the lancome in a water

 Third Part: dropping water balls

 We used liquid gel balls, similar to these The mysterious water balls, but black ones. Unfortunately, the they are smaller than clear ones, and this was the reason why it was not possible to get a whole composition in one shot, as the the mascara looked disproportionally big for the gel balls. See it on a shot below:

The real size of the balls and lancome tiube

As for the dropping balls part (he-he, sounds funny:-), we used the same piece of black glass (actually it was a regular mineral glass spray painted with black paint), filled with a layer of water.

Only one stripbox, positioned on top was used. I’ve got it the way that the reflection was not visible on a flat water surface, but did appear on the waves. The same light from a stripbox created reflection on top of each gel ball:

Below are few examples of those drops. 

Water black gel drops in a water

Black gel liquid balls drops in a water

Black gel liquid balls drops in a water

Liquid gel splash

Again, the final shot:

Now, if you enjoyed the article you may take a look at this video, where I and our Splash Master contributor, Dave Nitsche  were talking about this and other Dave’s shot.
Here you go:
 

Studio Photography insights G+ Hangout with Dave Nitsche

Shoot specification:

• Camera/Lens:Canon 5dMKII + 180mm F3.5L macro lens
• Lighting: Einstein E640 studio strobes
• Exposure: 1/200 sec, F13

Like it? Want to learn how to create shots like these? Take a look at what I have for you:

About The Author: Alex Koloskov

The lighting magician, owner of AKELstudio, Inc.

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• Google+
|
• More Posts (376)

You may also like to read: