Here’s to a Single Malt

6 Dec

Recently I had the privilege of working with one of the Yorkshire Coast’s most interesting and innovative brands; the Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery. They are creators of Yorkshire’s first-ever single malt whisky.

Glass can be difficult to photograph. It’s a bit of a ‘catch-22’, removing distracting reflections from the glass surface whilst maintaining some reflectivity to depict the product correctly. I use diffusion in nearly all shoots that involve glass as it allows unsightly specular highlights to be removed that would otherwise detract from the final image.

‘Filey Bay’ is the client’s flagship product and since its launch in 2016 the distillery has gone from strength to strength winning numerous awards. Differentiating their approach, the third-generation farmers use their own homegrown barley to create a select range of single-malt whiskies.

For styled shots, it was important to communicate the ethos and region where the product hails from. I combined pebbles from a local beach placed atop a vintage table which had the right look and patina. Barley grains from the client’s farm were an important element to incorporate and to finish off the setting, I painted a textured background to further enhance the organic feel.

Shots of multiple bottles were ‘composited’ together to provide optimal lighting on the surface of each bottle, one bottle was photographed at a time so that there were no reflections from one bottle to another.

Jenni Mellor, one of the company’s Directors, said “We researched Yorkshire-based photography and were really impressed with Richard’s imagery. We really liked that he understood the region and area we represent. Really impressed and very easy to work with.”

To check out Spirit of Yorkshire’s unique range of products see their website here, they keep winning lots of awards so it must be good stuff! You can even take a tour of the distillery with a tasting or two along the way.