Taking pics of shiny items is one way to drive someone learning photography nuts. Only topped by transparent and shiny (glass) sujets. Cousin of mine is a professional photographer, and the apprentice of his studio looked very tired round the eyes after two days of exercise session for some examina.
I do use a similar setup like Kurt posted sometimes. Sometimes I do a different thing:
I setup a flat white base (i.e. paper), bend it as shown below, place the pipe (forgive the detail in my sketch) upon it. Then I vertically arrange some sheets of white cardboard around it. They can be rather slim, but depending on the lines of the bowl have to be rather high. Dams, everytime I do a session, I forget to take some pics of the setting. Let me try to get some Illustration…
The flow of the paper creates the illusion of the pipe standing in a never ending white room, since there is no "corner" in that room which will always show, no matter how soft you arrange the lighting. I let the paper hang (front side) from the table, and arrange something on the table to raise the paper's back edge. Camera will be placed shooting from the lower end. Depending on the height of the camera's viewpoint, the raising of the paper's back edge has to be adjusted, assuring the whole viewfinder is filled with that white paper. I tend to use a rather low viewpoint, "eye to eye" with the pipe.
One can already do some rather good pictures with that setting. I place a very soft light right above it. I use a flash light connected to the cam. The flash fires into a big white plastic bag (rather thin white material), that I attach to the flashlight with some wires I bent to an appropriate shape. Should be possible to do with a lamp instead of a flashlight. Important thing is to keep the white area that is lit by the light source rather wide, otherwise you will have those nasty little spotlights on the pipe, and the light will produce rather harsh shadows. Other important thing is: You should not use available light for such a setting, since it will not be reproducable. One day you have a room flooded with light from outside, then again not, and so on… Take the pics in the evening, or try to subdue ambient available light as far as you can.
The underlying white paper will make sure, that the lines of the pipe under it's widest parts will have some smooth lighting, too. Experiment with the position of that overhead light to give the pic some depth. If the far away side of the underlying paper is lit up a little less than the area 'round the pipe, this adds some depth, too.
This will be smooth pics. No harsh highlights. Depending on the position of the headlight, you will have some lighter parts on top of the bowl and of the mouthpiece, but you will probably not have those sharp lines from light to dark as a reflection on the bowl's sides, that let the finish’ shine jump at you.
Arrange some white cardboard around the pipe. Make sure you can easily push them around, so you can find the right place where they send their reflections onto the pipe so it looks good. Takes some time, I tell you. Must be done again for every pipe, since every bowl has it's own lines. Sometimes the pipe is circumfenced with these, sometimes one is already enough. Sometimes the light reflected over that bouncers coming from the headlight is already sufficient, sometimes I arrange a second flash (lighting of any kind, if you like or don't have those many flashlights) that points directly onto that bouncing card. If arranging a second light, have an eye on what this light does on the pipe directly, without the reflection. Sometimes I have to shade off that second light so it only sends light to the bouncer. Mostly I place this second light behind the pipe, so it's direct light gives the pipe some contours, but that's difficult to handle.
Important thing is: Don't make it white all around the pipe, or you will end up with a smooth lighting again. Most of the time, it is fully sufficient to leave some space between the bouncers. Light just "falls off" between them. The pipe's surface only reflects some dark area for that space, and you have those sharp lines that show the shine. If necessary, I do arrange some smaller, black carboard as "negative" bouncers.
The thing about the bouncers is – you can move them to produce the line on the pipe where
you want it. Issues: It is a painstaking slow procedure needing accurate work, even if you have some routine. Control every single pic you take, if possible on the big screen, not only on the small one on the camera.
Some example pic from a restored estate, the pic (and pipe) not perfect to my eye, just to illustrate possible outcome:
Compared to this one, where I build sort of a tent around the pipe made of translucent white paper. The pipe almost looks like having a matte finish (which it has not). It is just that the reflecting material "never ends", so that the reflections on the wood are very soft.
![Image](http://www.alexanderfrese.de/tyler/p3/bilder/3m.jpg)