I do not usually photograph food – once in a while there was some steak on the grill for a Frontgate shot, or a model would hold an ice cream cone for a Boston Proper catalog image, but food as the main subject of my photography hasn’t crossed my camera often.
One of my recent clients has assigned a pour shot to me for a double page in their catalog, so I’ve been photographing splashes and pours all morning and since I did not find a ‘how-to-photograph-a-beverage-pour‘ post online, I figured I’ll post one.
Here are the requirements of the shot from the client:
- The bottle must be on the left page of the photograph, so that the right half becomes a clean background for the copy. The coffee must be the background for the whole spread.
- The bottle itself must be visible, since it is an interesting construction made up of two separate glass containers, that are fused together containing the coffee liquor in one half and the cream in the other.
- The name of the bottle should be readable, although it will be underneath the spout when the pour is shot from the top.
So I start out with is a discussion of the shot and a sketch:
This is a pretty complicated shot. First of all it has to fit the space, it needs to be light nicely and it has to be repeatable, i.E. the bottle has to be in the same place and can’t move.