WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO CREATE A SERIES LIKE THIS?

MORE THAN YOU MIGHT THINK


It started out simple enough: Shooting the brands coffee mugs suspended mid-air with a backdrop specific to the company colors/branding.


But true to how my brain works, once I got started SO many more ideas swirled around in my mind: what if I laid the mugs in coffee beans? Tossed them in the air? Made cold brew? Created additional backdrops? Set the scene with a morning cup of coffee at a work station? Have the mugs laying amongst a 'Field Notes' journal? Or maybe laying amongst some plants?


For simplicities sake lets look at the effort from a bird eye perspective and outline the steps to create this series:


  1. Researching best canvas fabric types for backdrops.
  2. Mixing Gesso + water and priming said backdrops. Gesso is expensive and if its on the canvas too thick it'll weigh it down unnecessarily
  3. Ruining your favorite jeans after painting backdrops with a very specific 10-1 water to paint ratio. Because watery paint splashes ev.ery.where.
  4. Buying the glassware, coffee beans (go cheap, so you're not wasting the good stuff - wait is there such a thing as cheap coffee beans?)
  5. Spend hours designing and clearing the workspace. Lighting mugs and glass is tough because it shows every single dust speck and lighting source - what angle should the camera be at to minimize glare?
  6. Then you're ready to spend a total of 16 hours shooting.
  7. Don't forget about the editing though.