The Nectar from Miłosław

I thought it was time I went back and did some still life work. I am in the process of obtaining a still life studio set up and can’t wait for it to arrive and get shooting with it.

My image for today is one of my few guilty pleasures in life, Beer. Most people when they think of Poland, think Vodka. There is a lot of vodka, yes and some quite good moonshine as well, but Poland also makes really good beer.

There are the main bands that are on sale every where like, Warka, Tyskie and Lech, but there are also smaller regional breweries that make really good beer as well. There seems to have been over the last year or so a boom in regional beers and the ability to buy them.

Battle at Miłosław, 1868 painting by Juliusz Kossak.

Furtuna Brewery is based near Poznan in the west of Poland close to the boarder shared with Germany. Fortuna brews a series of beers called Miłosław. Miłosław is brewed in the tradition of the town the beers take their names from. During the 1948 Greater Poland Uprising Miłosław was the setting of the biggest battles between uprising Poles and the Prussian Empire (Between 1772-1918 Poland was wiped from the world map after being divided between the Prussian, Russian and Austo-Hungarian Empires).  A scene of the battle was painted by Juliusz Kossak.

Final Image

Using a white background in combination with a window to light the left side of the image, on camera flash to fill in detail from the front and an off camera flash  to light the inside of the glass from the top. I placed the beer glass in front of a bottle of beer and used a large aperture to create a shallow depth of field.

I processed the image in Camera Raw and imported to Photoshop for sharpening and exporting to jpeg.

Is there a favourite tipple that you can only find locally? Have you ever had the opportunity to try Polish beer? and of course, what do you think of the image?
Or any other comments please feel free to use the comment section below.

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