This tutorial is about choosing accessories and props to enforce the concept and message a studio photographer is trying to make. Importantly, it does not deal primarily with choices about cameras, lenses, lights, or other photographic equipment, but instead it deals with the choices a photographer must make about choosing and finding the props needed to make a photograph a success. It explains how to shoot a martini, and illustrates the importance of choosing the correct glass, through more mundane accessories such as what type of olives to use, all the way to discussing something as seemingly minor as what type of toothpicks to skewer the olives on.
It also covers techniques for making consistent and repeatable pours so a photographer can adjust and hold carefully arranged focus so that more than one image of a difficult set-up can be accomplished. Finally, it illustrates how adding colored gels to certain lights on the set can change the feeling the image imparts to the viewer and explains how a photographer knowing something about the Bernoulli Principle can be helpful.
