Become Better Photographer: Playing with Plexiglass with David Bergman

Updated June 2023 Elevate your photography with a simple yet stunning trick that involves shooting a model or a product on a sheet of plexiglass, creating awe-inspiring reflections. This great technique can be easily executed in a photo studio for rent like FD Photo Studio with basic grip and lightning equipment included, allowing you to experiment and achieve captivating results. By placing the subject on a smooth sheet of plexiglass, the reflective surface adds depth and visual interest to your images. The play of light and shadow combined with the reflected elements creates a mesmerizing and artistic effect, elevating your photos to a whole new level. Have you ever experimented shooting a subject standing on a plexiglass for that cool reflection effect? In this episode David Bergman with   AdoramaTv will show you his approach to this common yet never getting old effect. David states – ” Whether you’re shooting high-end products, or simply photographing things to sell online, it can be cool to get a reflection under your subject. Sure you can shoot the photo and then flip it in the computer to place the reflection underneath, but why take the time to do that, when you can get it right very easily in-camera.” The trick is to use a piece of acrylic otherwise known as Plexiglas. Plexi is see-through and reflective, just like glass but actually works better if you try to shoot on glass you’ll wind up with a double reflection off of the top and bottom panes. Plexi doesn’t do that, plus it’s lighter and doesn’t shatter like glass. The only thing to watch out for is that it scratches really easily, so you need to handle it very carefully. You can buy Plexiglas in almost any size and color. Black is popular for products, but some people just buy a clear sheet and then spray paint one side of it black. If you’re only going to use occasionally, clear plexi is probably more versatile, because you can put it on top of any color background, and that color will show through a small sheet. Mr. Bergman continues: “It works well for products, and if you get one big enough you could even have a person stand on it. Without the plexi on the ground we don’t have the reflection, and it’s difficult to get solid white on model’s feet without blasting too much light on her shoes, but when I have her stand on the sheet of Plexi, with the white paper underneath, I get a natural looking reflection on her and the background, which makes that part of the image go solid white.” The key advantage of using plexiglass in your photos is that you save a tremendous amount of time on post-editing, and creating artificial reflection. Sure, there are other reflective materials you can implement in your shoots, but Plexiglas is relatively cheap and incredibly versatile. Plus it also saves the background paper, because it won’t get wrinkled torn or dirty when the model walks on it. 🙂