Creative Sunday Practice #16

This week’s Creative Sunday Practice is about bottles — not as objects to document, but as tools to experiment with light.

Most bottles are transparent, semi-transparent, tinted, scratched, curved, imperfect. Which makes them surprisingly good at bending, coloring, and reshaping light. That’s the real subject here.

Instead of asking “How do I make this bottle look good?”, try asking: “What does this bottle do to light?”

How to approach the practice

Start simple and limit your choices:

• Pick one bottle and commit to it

• Use one light source (a desk lamp, bedside lamp, phone flashlight)

• Move the light slowly and observe before shooting

• Pay attention to reflections on walls, tiles, tables, or fabric

• Let the background participate — don’t treat it as neutral

The order matters. Observe first. Shoot later.

What surprised me

While practicing at home, I used a green mouthwash bottle and directed a small lamp through it toward the bathroom wall. The light scattered across the tiles in soft waves of green, shifting as I moved the lamp by just a few centimeters.

It barely read as “bottle photography” anymore. It felt closer to photographing atmosphere.

Where to practice

Bathroom. Kitchen. Office. Anywhere there’s a bottle and a wall.

No need for special gear. No need for perfect results. This is about training your eye to notice how light behaves — and how small changes create entirely new images.

I’ll be back next Sunday with another everyday object to continue the ritual.

P.S. If you’re new to this series: every Sunday I share one simple photography prompt using an everyday object, designed to be practiced at home with your phone. You can browse earlier practices by following the hashtag.