Levitating product shot

The great thing about David Hobby's Strobist blog is that David shows you how to do all sorts of clever things using small flashes and simple set-ups. The bad thing is that there isn't much left for the rest of us to write about!

David's tutorial on how to photograph a light bulb also explained how to make an object appear to float in mid-air. Easy when you know how, but effective. There's an easier way though, just as effective and with some advantages, and that's the technique I used for the following 'levitation' photograph

One advantage of this technique is that you could have the product reflected in a shiny floor, which would not be possible with the light bulb technique. For this shot I didn't want a reflection but I did want a shadow, which is something else that you couldn't do with the light bulb technique. See if you can figure out how it was done and I'll post the explanation along with the one for the other product shot posted this morning. Remember, it's very simple and, truth be told, quite dull, so don't over-think it and come up with some crazy complicated solution.