Making a mess in the name of food photography - with Nurture Brands

I’ve worked on a total of 9 shoot days for Nurture Brands in the last few months and each shoot has been messier than the one before! Working on set with the brand team at Backgrounds Studio, we created some really eye-catching imagery across several different products, each with their own style and use of different props and backgrounds.

Scroll down to see some of the images.


Colourful juice shots for Rebel Kitchen

This was an intricate shoot day! You’d be amazed how long it takes to style each element of a flatlay like this to create a busy and well balanced image, while still ensuring every piece of fruit and veg is looking its best. Top tips include brushing apple slices with lemon juice to prevent them going brown and keeping the prettiest spinach leaves in an ice bowl until go time.

We also got a few group shots of the frozen juices to showcase the different bundles you can buy and to help the customer visualise what the products will look like when delivered. I love the way the bottles have frosted up on the outside - it makes the product feel really fresh and is a beautiful texture to photograph.

A mixture of styles across different brands

One of my favourite thing about working with the Nurture Brands team is that each product has a very different style, giving me the chance to experiment with different lighting, props and backgrounds to bring each different product to life.

I loved the alternative brief for the Seaweed Crisps for example, mimicking chip-shop chips - traditionally served on newspaper with salt, vinegar and a beer in hand - and switching it up to capture the product and packaging in all its glory. The beach scene was another messy one (yes that’s real sand!) while the Jax Coco shots had me lying on the floor with a perspex sheet above me, precariously balancing a glass bottle on top and throwing coconut pieces and water around.

In comparison, the calming feel of both the shadow and ripple effect on the Jax Coco can shots make these images some of my favourite, while I also love the retro feel that the bold colours and hard light bring in the EMILY shots. So hard to choose a favourite style when there are so many fun elements to each!

And lastly, the messiest shots!

I’ll start by saying there were plastic sheets everywhere for these photos, it was chaos! Although messy, the two juice shots were reasonably simple to capture, I just had to quick fire my flash to get a whole load of images in quick succession - I didn’t want to miss the perfect moment!

The coconut water shots on the other hand are both composite images, each element photographed one by one and added together in post production. In the first shot, I started with the product on the pile of ice, then moved on to capture several splash shots, all of which were layered on top of one another in editing. Lastly I captured the blurred leaves and layered those on at the end too.

With the glass shot, I had both the lime wedge and the slice of peel held in place with clamps and sticks. I filled up the glass, then proceeded to drop ice cube after ice cube into the glass to create a whole bunch of splash shots, again picking the best element of each to comp together. Finally I scattered the foreground with additional ice and lime to finish it off. A lengthy process, but well worth it for the perfect shot.


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