Photographing bottles can be a real headache, especially if you are
dealing with colors. Professional photographers will use large backdrops
of solid colors on which they can play lights and such. There is,
however, an easier way.
 
Get a large piece of non-glare glass or a really big size of clear
acrylic sheet, like they sell for screen doors. Suspend same about two or
three feet off the groud by chain or cable. In my set up, I have the
plastic slung between the four legs of a woood framed swing set. Then put
your camera on a tripod above the plastic sheet. Best place to do this is
outdoors on an overcast day, so all light is indirect and there are no
shadows. That is the best time for color photography anyway. Normal
subjects can be photographed with no special background. If the camera is
a foot from the bottle and the grass below is 2 or 3 feet away, the
background will be mottled and indistinct, while the crisp lines of the
bottle will be accentuated. If the color of the grass or ground under the
swing set is not desirable, get some colored bedsheets and lay them on
the ground. My clear plastic is tilted slightly so that I can photograph
at an angle. It is important that the film plane of the camera be
parallel to the vertical axis of the subject. If you want to tilt the
plastic,
drill two small holes about an inch apart in the plastic. A wire or nail
in the hole will make a perfectly good rest upon which to prop objects on
the slanted plastic sheet, and they won't show in the picture because
they are in the back of the object. Just another use for paper clips!-