Sitting on the fence statement (I do it more in real life than you'd think)
Daniel's been quite an interesting new member, this thread unfortunately comes across a little as described above, which I don't believe is intentional and possibly owes a little of that to translation.
I'm hoping to see more of what he's shot, and maybe if they're in the right photo-sharing sections they won't cause the same dramas.
It'd also be nice to see him in the technical sections sharing some of his experiences and techniques too
I agree.
FWIW, there aren't really any 'trade secrets' in this game, just a number of "old school" people who believe that they need to protect their "unique" skills by pretending that lighting is a black art that is only open to the few who have been formally trained and who have paid their dues by working as assistants for many years - something that I used to encounter all the time when I was a trainee, but fortunately fairly rare today.
Of course, although knowledge is key, and although literally anyone can achieve the knowledge via study, experience is a factor too, but all that experience really does is to discard some of the techniques that really can't work in a given situation, which cuts out most of the wasted time. As an example of this, the OP used his experience to avoid unwanted specular highlights in the glass by not using reflected light for this subject.
Speaking personally, shortly before I took over the lighting forum on
www.photo.net, many years ago now, another commercial photographer, Brooks Short, started a weekly series of "Lighting Themes" in which he explained, demonstrated and proved how to deal with a very wide range of lighting challenges, and the membership could then ask question and, more importantly, contribute their own efforts. It was brilliantly effective as a learning tool and went a long way to dispel the lighting myths that so many people had, and to prove that lighting is just a combination of easily-learned knowledge, technique and art. By revealing the so-called trade secrets, we showed people that lighting is in fact pretty easy and that anyone can do it.
Of course, lines have now become blurred by image PP, because far too many people post work that owes more to PP than to photographic technique, and this can help to mask faults, and because many people just won't spend a reasonable amount of money on proper lighting equipment (although they're happy to spend thousands on high end cameras and lenses that they often don't need to have).
However the OP is seen by some members here, his photo was produced using established (if very simple) techniques that relied on knowledge, technique and attention to detail, not on image manipulation and I'm sure that he has a lot to contribute to this forum.
