This article is Part 2 of a series on photographing highly reflective black objects, often referred to as “mirror black”. Part 1 can be found here.

In May 2019, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam hosted 2+3D: Practice and Prophecies, a biennial international conference on 2D and 3D digital photography for museum and cultural heritage professionals. I was invited to lead workshops on lighting techniques for highly reflective black objects. Frans Pegt, a photographer at the Rijksmuseum, and I originally planned to jointly lead these workshops, but Frans was later asked to give workshops on the 360° capture of a masterwork in silver (another very difficult subject). However, The Rijksmuseum generously funded Frans to come to Corning in March of this year for an intensive week in The Corning Museum of Glass photography studios where together we documented lighting solutions for the objects that appear in this post.

Part 1 demonstrated techniques using a photo table with a translucent white acrylic surface that allows for both backlighting and surface lighting.

Part 2 of this series demonstrates similar techniques adapted for an opaque background, as well as more traditional object lighting techniques modified for mirror black glass, and finally some hybrid approaches.

A note about this series of articles: 

Since 2015, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has hosted 2+3D: Practice and Prophecies, a biennial international conference on 2D and 3D digital photography for museum and cultural heritage professionals. In 2017, I was invited to lead workshops, in collaboration with Rijksmuseum photographer Frans Pegt, on photographic lighting techniques for transparent glass. During the workshops, someone asked about photographing highly reflective black objects, often called mirror black. Both Frans and I said: “That’s a whole different workshop!” Photographing mirror black objects is one of the most difficult and humbling challenges photographers face, but Frans and I decided we should attempt to document successful approaches. 

So, in May 2019, I led workshops at the 2+3D conference on lighting techniques for highly reflective black objects. Frans was already committed to giving workshops on the 360° capture of a masterwork in silver (another very difficult subject), so I was on my own this time. However, The Rijksmuseum had generously funded Frans to come to Corning in March of this year for an intensive week in The Corning Museum of Glass photography studios where together we documented lighting solutions for several objects that will appear in Part 2 of this series.