For anyone interested in lighting techniques for "difficult" surfaces, including glass, I'd recommend the excellent "Light Science & Magic" by Paul Fuqua & Fill Hunter: https://www.amazon.com/Light-Science-Magic-Introduction-Phot...

I wanted to second "Light Science and Magic," and also put in a plug for Strobist, which is where I originally heard about this book: http://strobist.blogspot.com

Photographic lighting is such an overlooked skill. Commercial photographers spend years crafting this skill. You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just on lighting, where one umbrella reflector, with no electronics, can cost $11k.

Here's an example of an iPhone product shot: https://fstoppers.com/video/bts-how-apples-product-photograp...

Each specular highlight & complementary shadow contrast is put in on purpose, with its own lighting/card/reflector.

I had no idea these were photography, I always assumed they were renders.

Related to this: when Ikea started using 3D models in their brochures photographers were teaching the 3D modelers how to lighten the products. And visa versa a lot of photographers became interested in 3D modeling.

Why do they bother photographing real models if they end up filling their screens in Photoshop in the end anyways?

My guess: legal requirements regarding "truth in advertising."

Really interesting. Even as an enthusiast photographer it's easy to overlook the amount of skill and work that goes into shots like this.

For anyone interested, Dustin Dolby's (aka Workphlo) YouTube channel provides lots of information on product photography on a budget

https://www.youtube.com/user/DustinDolby

Just commenting to add this wonderfully succinct summary of the post by John Overholt:

>It takes a tremendous amount of work to make the work that goes into photographing this goblet invisible.

https://twitter.com/john_overholt/status/991110369082068992