How is everybody doing? I feel like I’ve never asked that question as much as I have lately and I do mean it every time. I know it’s been hard for a lot of people, both on a personal and business side, there have been big losses, on both plans as well and I hope it’ll get better for everyone.

On my side, it’s been fine, I’ve been working from home, because I can, my boyfriend has been working from home as well and it’s been okay. I’ve had some low mental health day, but who hasn’t really?

I obviously lost several contracts being a food/event/product photographer, but it allowed me to work on an ebook and a pack that I just released last week (both in French and English) which I have been wanted to do for several months but never had the time (or couldn’t be bothered…). And now it’s HERE!

I’ve also been able to work with a new company called The Taste Club, which was in the mind of their creators before the lockdown, but got pushed on the front stage when it all happened. Creators are Georga Spottiswood, CEO of Savour Magazine (you’ve heard of her before on this blog, I was with her in San Diego!) Valda Goodfellow from G&G Goodfellow and her son Liam.

The Taste Club is an alcohol box (vodka, gin or rum) with only local products, from the main bottle, to the little snacks… They have new boxes every season and you can order yours on this page.

I’ve been styling around cocktails for a while now as I’ve been working for Tiger Hornsby for more than a year, but I never had to actually create the cocktails so it was a bit of a challenge, that I was completely willing to try. I didn’t created the recipe though, I’m not a massive alcohol drinker so it’s not something I’ve really looked into so far!

For each box we elaborate a vibe that we wanted, as it’s the summer season, the main word was bright and vibrant, they knew that most clients were women, but they needed the rum to be a bit less female oriented. So I came up with those three sets for this season’s boxes:

Working out what props to use is a gymnastic that gets easier with time, I need to think about the colours that are already present in the products’ designs, what is in the products themselves (the tea has cinnamon in it for instance) but also the colours and props I’m going to be using in the cocktail, and re-use all those elements as reminder in the group shot.

The commission also was to include a GIF for the group, as videos/gifs work extremely well on social media. Although those photos were not just destined to social media but also as marketing tools/support, on their website, and if social media is on the table, in particular instagram that means that the photos/gif are going to be reframed so I have to make sure that everything works and that if anything is being cut from the image, it’s not a massive loss on information.

I always use blue-tack to stop the bottle from rolling around, I start by placing the main products on the set, then put the bigger props first (lemon, flowers..) and finally the smaller ones that way I’m able to balance them all around.

Being at home at the moment, I’m enjoying the fact my boyfriend is here as well and knows how to use my camera to ask him for some backstage shots, which work reaaaaally well on social media because apparently people love to this what happens backstage!

Do you notice the 10° difference between those two shots? Ahah

That was really fun getting to make those cocktails, because during this pandemic time, not driving a car, I have to do what I can with what I find to my local Sainsburys, so when we don’t want to use Curaçao for a cocktail because it’s too expensive, we need to fin a blue equivalent, but food colouring was gone from the shelves (I guess everybody is baking?) no Powerade either, but I managed to find a blue alcoholic mixer somehow, and it worked like a charm! We also don’t want to waste alcohol, I mentioned on my Instagram that I’m not a massive gin fan and to avoid opening a brand new bottle and opening the tonics that were needed for the shoot, I just used basic fizzy water and grenadine cordial!

Shooting food, drinks, anything and style it, for me, is all about being resourceful, if something doesn’t work the way you want it to work (and if often does) you need to be able to bounce back right away and find solutions! MacGyver the hell out of your project!

Any questions? Pop them in the comments!

Lockdown Edition - Styling and shooting Cocktails for The Taste Club