The Hairy Mussel Co – live tank shoot
August 8th, 2009 | by Andrew |The Hairy Mussel Co is an innovative company of cool Guys who have worked out how to distribute fresh, live green-lip mussels to folk who enjoy fine food. I’ve done a bit of work for them and I love them! They are go-getters with the good old kiwi can do, never say die attitude, an inspiration to the rest of us.
Thing is, they’ve developed this mussel tank that will fit in retailers shops and it needs no power to run, has a small footprint. You just put the mussels in, fill up an ice box and you’re good to go. Too easy. Yeah…as long as you’re not a photographer! The Hairy Mussel Co need some promo images, this tank is as shiny as your retired father in law’s car and I was having nightmares about capturing images of it.
I thought of putting one of these tanks on the beach somewhere and using a 200mm lens to keep myself from being reflected off every sparkling piece of it. Turns out that wasn’t an option and we had to make photos at Cuddon Engineering in Blenheim, they are the clever people who turn dreams into tangible assets.
So, rethink on the photo shoot. Solution – huge light source by shooting a strobe through a diffuser panel, a little bit of fill with an umbrella and try to eliminate any bright ambient light with another diffuser. And used a blue background in case we decided to cut out the tank.
Result – beautiful! What a work of art this mussel tank is, almost as delectable as the product that’s going to be in it. I adore mussels!
the set up
The Hairy Mussel tank straight out of camera, no post process
Yup – that’s the Hairy Mussel attention to detail
Tags: 200mm lens, ambient light, blenheim, blue background, cool guys, fine food, footprint, green lip mussels, images, innovative company, kiwi, light source, little bit, love, mussel, nightmares, photo, photo shoot, promo images, strobe, tangible assets, umbrella, work of art, yup
