Malfy Gin
A few years ago, I never would have thought that my budding career as a freelance womenswear photographer would lead me to doing product photography, but here we are. I actually quite enjoy shooting product, lifestyle, beverages, and food, I just didn’t realize there was such a market need for photography when it comes to smaller or newer brands.
I usually welcome any opportunity to try something completely different than what I’m used to, whether it’s subject matter or lighting technique or post processing, so when Amber Sakis at Artisan Council asked if I would be interested in shooting for an up and coming gin brand called Malfy, I said ‘absolutely’.
While I tend to go for softer, airy, warm images in my portraiture and fashion work, I knew I’d have to switch things up for this client. I ended up using 4 lights for some of the really specular shots. For anybody who’s curious: 1 small softbox aimed at the seamless for background illumination, one light with a small reflector as the key light, one small softbox as a fill, and one bare bulb aimed directly into the ceiling above the setup. I also used a white bounce board and some V-flats to flag light as needed.
With portraiture, I’m much more used to using natural/ambient light or a single giant softbox. I usually strive for simplicity. But I really wanted something glossy and polished for Malfy, and something resembling a bright sunny day to play off the packaging, which is colorful, playful, and vibrant. To that end, I also adjusted my processing in Capture One to complement that: lots of clarity and sharpness, lots of vibrancy and saturation, and careful management of highlights and shadows so that small details like carbonation bubbles and fine text on the label wouldn’t get lost.
Shooting product can be so incredibly tedious, but I love being able to constantly learn and troubleshoot in new shooting situations, and at the end of day I’m super proud of what we were able to pull off. Thanks for reading! If any photographers out there have any questions about shooting commercially or shooting product / beverage, feel free to drop me a line in the comments below. :)
