The Client and Their Brief
We completed a fantastic location food photography campaign for Kenwood, through our good friends at Mambo Media, to show off the new MultiPro OneTouch Mixer.
An exciting new product for food and drinks at home!
The brief was to photograph the product, and the food it can help make, on location. The photography needed to be bright, engaging and above all reflect the quality and reputation of a leading brand. A location shoot house was chosen that had a kitchen approved by the client. It was reflective of the products positioning and audience demographic, too.
What We Did
We were working alongside Mambo Media who were delivering moving image to accompany our stills, which would sit all together as a product category page on Amazon.
The Lighting Details
With lighting as one of our core skillsets, we were invited to gaffer the shoot. Which was an absolute joy! We take great pride in understanding lighting on both a very technical, and artistic level. It might sound a little nerdy, but the quality of light, its shape, the direction, and how it’s modified are things that really excite us. Suffice to say, with a van load of gear, we were in our element!
After setting up some background interest with directional hard light from the Aputure 1200D (elevated and focused down through the blinds to create lines on the kitchen tiles) we rigged some internal ceiling bounce, and closer directional lighting across the product on the island.
Different Lighting Sets
The set for the food, products, and models would vary slightly. Overall we tried to create a directional scene with soft fill that had enough contrast to engage the audience and feel natural, without overpower the focus on the items.
By using continuous daylight lighting we had a location set that was suitable to shoot location food photography for both photography, and film crews. This allowed a dynamic balance between the teams, and created logistical efficiencies with no time lost to rigging additional flash lighting sets. The benefit of Aputure LED is not only that its output is bright enough for our cameras native ISO. It’s also able to function during the renowned British weather.
Being able to set and forget these lights is a must have professional capability!
TheFood Styling
The food was styled by Rebecca Smale, a wonderful local food stylist with tons of experience. She was set up in another part of the building and on standby to bring in the dishes one at a time. She worked very closely with the client to ensure that the dishes were indeed created with the use of the MultiPro OnTouch machine. This is important in our industry, with trust often cited as a consumer must have when it comes to advertising!
Food photography styling is an art. We work closely with many stylists to deliver images that look great. The primary concern from a photography perspective is that the food scaling, portion size and freshness compliment the set. Additionally, we always try to ensure items are built and presented to camera in a way that shows all the components harmoniously. This usually takes longer than many people think! Respecting the time needed for the styling is very important. Often, parts of the dish will be adjusted, restyled, and even remade before the finished image is ‘taken’. We never falsify our images, but we do ensure that the food looks appetising and is true to life!
Food Lighting
The lighting on the food was punchy, directional, but again not overpowering. It’s easy to create ‘soft window light’, but we’re always keen to go further! We will analyse the images with the client to talk about how the food appears on screen. This means our lighting has additional elements not often used by other photographers on location, that helps to bring out the textures and colours of the dishes.
When we add extra light, we will typically decide which areas of the image we’ll use it for later on in post production. By shooting tethered we can ensure the client or creative agency is always on-board with the art direction.
Model Directing
To finish the project, it was directed that models interact with the products, and the food. This part was photographed and filmed on the final shoot day. There was a great cast! We had a good time helping direct the dynamic images in a creative way. The light hearted and candid style was perfect, and helps accentuate the products unique selling points and target market.
Why not take a look at some of the finished images in the gallery below, to see how it all turned out!
How It Looks
The Results
SimplSimplyput, The demands of product page listings/crops, food photography and interaction with hand models meant a structured shoot with adjustable lighting – something we feel we delivered professionally and efficiently!
The work is live online and helping to drive sales for a quality product, which is always the best feedback we can get. With a happy client and enticing food photography we feel this project was a huge success.
Like our location food photography? Why not check out our food photography page, here.
What The Client Said
“Hi Guys – already heard back from the client – they’re really happy!”
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