I really had a lot of fun playing around with ideas for shooting these gorgeous products from Tauranga-based Clarity Distilling Company. The bottles are beautiful, and I really wanted to capture that as well as create a feel that looked in keeping with a concept of "clarity".
These ones of the Vodka are some of my most favourite shots. I wanted the scene to represent sharpness and suaveness like a well cut suit, to feel clean and pure to be in line with the name Clarity, and to feel luxe to match the sophisticated black bottle design. I decided that using crystal glassware and shards of ice were perfect to achieve this.
The 2023 Gin has a beautiful green label. It made me think of dew, soft rainfall and New Zealand's lush forests. I wanted to create a shot that felt like it could be sunlight filtering through a canopy of trees and really bring a feeling of purity and of nature.
The shot of the Dry Gin I kept pretty simple. The rich reds and browns tied in nicely with a worn wooden surface and lighting which would bring out the label colours. I also experimented with adding more props with the shot on the right, but ultimately the simple and clean shot on the left is my favourite.
The Navy Gin I shot sitting on top of an old barrel and incorporated a few props which had a nautical feel to them - rope, shells, leather etc. Once again I wanted to really bring out the vibrant colours in the label so used lighting to illuminate that and I also used a dark blue background to subtly go with the blues more than a harsh black.
And a couple of other early concepts I experimented with...
