The Story Behind The Image #6

This is one of my favourite commercial shots, and again came from the Mey Selections days, when they commissioned me to do their work. This one was for an advert for Sainsbury’s if my memory serves me right, and the brief was to get one image showing the diversity of products they offered.

So, how do we get that? Well, the obvious and easy way is to get the products together, arrange them artistically, and maybe have a famous North Highland scene as a backdrop. But – will a picture of a steak, a piece of lamb, a pack of shortbread, some cookies and a jar of honey, really catch the eye? In reality, probably not.

So….. step up suppliers, with your products in their more raw stage. Two bakers, one with shortbread ready for the oven, one with the raw materials, one bee-keeper (with no bees I am glad to say), two farmers, a cow and a sheep.

It wasn’t the easiest shot to set up, with the image being built up from the centre…. Beekeeper in place……baker one in place, baker two in place, here comes the sheep, and once it was all looking good composition-wise, step forward the Aberdeen Angus provider of steak. It was literally a case of click, click, click, click, shoot over, as these models weren’t too keen on working together – a bit bitchy really. (Not the humans I may add). There was only about two images where everything lined up properly, e.g. the cow looking the right way.

So there we have it. A cool image which definitely met the brief and everyone loved it.