Seeing the world "thru-the-bottle."
By Josie Grogan
29 May 2009
You could have a bin full of treasure sitting in your kitchen right now and not even know it. Turn those used, plastic soda and water bottles, into what I call semi-filters. Everyone's emptied their water bottle and tipped it up to look through the end, but it's not very satisfying, as the entire image is blurred.
For a unique point of view, try cutting that water bottle in half with scissors. Now, take the top half, and place the large end over your lens. Looking through the view finder, you are peering through the neck of the bottle and you have a sporty little filter that will fit on the end of most cameras.
My first semi-filter was made out of a green 7UP bottle. For a couple of days I wandered around my yard taking photos of different objects. I found out quickly that this technique works best with a wide angle lens. I used my 18-55mm. If you go much longer than that, the zooming in blocks out the filter effect of the bottle, and you are just peering through the neck of the bottle. With that 18-55mm range, you have more variation in filter/subject ratio.
Everything looks different through a bottle! I found myself focusing on close up subjects, that I would never have thought to photograph before. Your depth is limited, so landscapes and broad areas are tricky. After a couple of days with this green bottle, I was ready to make more. In my attempt to find different colored plastic, I discovered that plastic bottles are really made in just green and clear varieties. If you wanted to be industrious, I guess you could buy plastic bottles such as the ever popular hiking/jogging bottles, but those are rigid plastic and would take some kind of saw to disassemble for this project. My aim was to recycle what would normally be thrown away. When choosing your bottles, pay attention and choose bottles with different size openings. This will change what you can see, therefore, how much of the subject you can focus on.
When in need of color, turn to a marker! I turned to my ever popular permanent pen collection, and set to work on my clear bottle. I tried purple, green and red since someone had raided my pen collection and left me these ever so complimentary colors. It turned out rather interesting though. It gave me a carnival-esque look. I took a whole new set of photos with this new filter. Still, the possibilities of an even different filter tempted me. What else could I put on my bottle that would let light through, produce a color, and make a unique photo?
Beads of course! I make bracelets and I had left over seed beads lying around, waiting for an interesting project. With a little clear adhesive, I glued pink, clear, gray and blue beads to the outside of the bottle. You may try the inside of the bottle if you would like. When pointed toward the direction of a light source, the light bounces off the reflective bead surface and through the bottle and gives a pixelated appearance. It gives a very unique look and it can be altered by the size and color of the beads you use.
I also tried painting clear bottles with some watered down acrylic paint but I didn't get the look I was going for. The paint turned out almost opaque, but it did give a soft glow to the filtered area. Using a transparent, glass paint would have probably given me the look I was after.
So with these instructions, go out and experience your world, "thru-the-bottle." Come up with some interesting ways of altering your bottles and please share them! I guarantee you will see the world in a brand new way.
2 responses
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Marco Martinez gave props (29 May 2009):
What a great story. Photography should be fun, and this seems definitely fun to do. Thanks for sharing. I will give this a try.
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Sonia Adam Murray gave props (30 May 2009):
Clever ideas I will have to try them sometime. Voted.
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