RAMBLINGS, BEHIND THE SCENES, THOUGHTS AND MUSES FROM PHOTOGRAPHER EDWARD FURY
It was great to be asked to shoot imagery for the Serum Cheat sheet event on Lookfantastic recently. Pastel tones, blocks and a hero angle made for a set of striking images. I always love seeing my work in use! Thanks to the guys at Blow Creative for the commission.
Photography: Edd Fury
Stylist: Jaine Bevan
Retoucher: Maria Protokova
Agency: Blow Creative
Client: L'Oréal
I think many of us will agree, 2021 has been a strange year. As we look forward with optimism for the year ahead I wanted to look back over some of the many highlights from the past 12 months that made 2021 an enjoyable year of work.
2021; A year that saw me burn through 2 cameras, 7 modelling bulbs, 2 magic arms, 1 flash tube and a lens.
125 days on set shooting 74 projects for clients. 5.5TB of data. (No wander I was tired by the end of it)
A personal project that has collected 4 awards, 3 overall/ category winners. (Creative Communication Awards; Other / Photography; Winner - Creativepool Annual 2021 Peoples Choice winner, Photography category - Creativepool Annual 2021 Bronze, Photography category - VIPA 2021 Still Life Category Winner)
Id like to offer a huge thank you to all the great clients, crew and retouchers who have made 2021 a hectic, but wonderful year of work.
I am delighted to announce that my collaborative series “Tangents in Dreams” won the top spot in the still life category in this years VIPA awards. Had great fun shooting this and its great that the hard work and days spent in the studio are paying off in awards. I’ve entered this into a few others, fingers crossed for some more honours!
Check out the other entries in the category here under the still life category:
https://vipacontest.com/fine-art-winners-2021/
And the overall winners gallery can be found here:
Recent test with stylist Jaine Bevan using fruit and veg from the local greengrocer. We kept the plastic bag in too, a little comment on the use of single use plastics too where a paper bag could have done the same job. Retouched by Ben Allen.
At the start of the year I took some time to scratch my head and think about doing something that I had wanted to do most of the previous year, but not really found the time.
Most of the liquids that I had shot that year previous had been contained and predictable. What I mean by that was either in a bottle or a glass, behaving as you would expect in a bottle or a glass. Freezing liquids is much more difficult than you would probably think, Limitations on equipment is usually the biggest hurdle. I’d been freezing people pouring drinks for now so I wanted to try and take it up a notch, both technically and creatively. I like a challenge.
I’d had the Coca Cola Signature Mixers in the studio for a while waiting for me to pull my finger out. The original idea was to take each flavouring and look at the ingredients and use those as the elements around the bottles. Saying that, some of the ingredients weren’t that easy to get hold of and it would mean that each bottle would always sit on its own because of the limitations with the ingredients.
Fast froward some days of thinking, planning and shooting and we had the elements needed to create the final image. Ben Allen (https://benallendigital.com/) retoucher extraordinaire/ wizard put all of the assets together seamlessly, and here we have the final images.
The shoot gave us a total of 5 assets, the main image which the angles and composition were set in the camera, gripped in cleverly. Splashes were then shot against a blank bottle and then individually to create enough assets to fill the gaps. You can see part of the retouch process below, with some of the asset images and the final stills too!
So here are a selection of some of the frames that went together to create the final image. It got pretty messy in the studio, but definitely worth doing I think!!
If you’d like to see some more behind the scenes features over the course of the year - stay tuned! Throughout some of our more exciting projects I’ll snap some behind the scenes images and video for you to see how some of the images were created!
I was recently commissioned to photograph a 3D printed bionic arm made by Open Bionics, who are based in Bristol, for an editorial piece for Dyson:On magazine. Along with a couple of hero images, the client required a contact sheet of images with the arm hiking everyday objects.
It was particularly challenging as the arm, unless worn, doesn’t grip or do anything. Everything just springs back to the default position, which worked perfectly for the main images here, but not so much for gripping and holding things. So with some precise wedging of the joints in the fingers, I was slowly able to manipulate the hand into the desired positions to hold these objects. And yes, I ate the chocolate bar as soon as we were done.
Last summer we built some sets in the studio and shot some festive drinks, perfect for celebrations, and warming moments of reflection. Here is just a few of the images, getting in close too for some great details!
For two servings, you will need:
50ml Baileys® Original Irish Cream Liqueur
40ml Smirnoff® Vanilla Flavoured Vodka
240ml Milk
2 Cinnamon Sticks
1 generous pinch of Cinnamon
Equipment:
2x Martini glass
1 x Strainer
1 x Jigger
1 x Cocktail Shaker
Method:
Fill a shaker with ice.
Add Baileys Original Irish Cream Liqueur, Smirnoff Vanilla Vodka and milk to the shaker.
Shake until cold.
Strain into a glass.
Garnish with cinnamon powder and a cinnamon stick and serve.
For two servings you will need:
50ml Whiskey
3 tsp of good quality Honey
1 Cinnamon Stick, snapped in half
1 Lemon, half juiced and half sliced
A couple of cloves
Equipment:
2x heatproof glasses
Teaspoon for stirring
Lemon juicer
Method:
Stir the whisky and honey together and split between 2 heatproof glasses. Add half of the cinnamon stick to each, then top up with 200ml boiling water.
Add a splash of lemon juice to each, then taste and add more to your preference. Finish each with a slice of lemon, studded with a clove, and serve immediately.
For two servings you will need:
75ml Gin
Juice of half a lemon
2 teaspoons of sugar
A dash of grenadine
Equipment:
1x Cocktail Shaker
2x Old fashioned, or stemmed cocktail glasses
Method:
In a shaker filled halfway with ice cubes combine the gin, lemon juice, sugar and grenadine.
Shake well until combined and chilled and serve in your glass of choice.
For each serving you will need:
50ml Bourbon or Rye Whisky
1x brown sugar cube (traditional) or 1 tsp of simple syrup
2 or 3 dashes of Angostura bitters
1x orange for peel
Large cube(s) of ice
Equipment:
Muddler
Bar Spoon
Peeler
Old Fashioned Glass
Method:
Place the sugar cube at the bottom of an old-fashioned glass.
Saturate the cube with bitters and muddle.
Add the whiskey and stir well.
Drop in the ice and stir the liquid through well, until the ice starts to give and melt.
Take a slice of orange peel for garnish. You can squeeze to release the oils if desired.
For two servings you will need:
Creme de Cassis
Champagne
Fresh or frozen Blackberries
Equipment:
Two champagne flutes or saucers
Martini picks (optional)
Method:
Pour roughly 1 tsp of the crème de cassis into the bottom of a champagne flute.
Top up with Champagne
Add a blackberry as garnish, you can skewer one onto the martini pick too and rest across the glass if desired.
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Looking forward to shooting more like this throughout 2020 - I might even shoot some more myself and put a little book of festive flavours together in time for next Christmas. Maybe…
I’d love to work on loads more drinks based stuff this year, so if you have a project that might suit, give me a shout - I’d love to work together!
2019 has been a great year, and, throughout the year, right up until late October Christmas shoots have been coming in! Those of you who follow me on Instagram will have seen my Christmas Advent, head on over to see a few more images there than the few selected here. (it was at the top of my feed throughout December)
It’s time to sit back and enjoy Christmas itself, but here are a few of my favourite Christmas images from this year, for a variety of clients. There was plenty of variety with the subject matter too, food, drinks and some proper still life stuff with perfume and ice skates for a couple of other campaigns. I hope you enjoy looking through them as much as I did making them.
Cheers from myself and the crew. Here’s to 2020! (we’re looking forward to getting started on shooting Christmas imagery throughout the year for next Christmas! Sorry for wishing the year away!)
Christmas Campaign for Cribbs Causeway
Christmas Campaign for Cribbs Causeway
Christmas Campaign for Cribbs Causeway
Christmas at The Savoy
Christmas at The Savoy
Christmas at The Savoy
The Perfume Shop gifting guide
The Perfume Shop gifting guide
Sofitel St James
Sofitel St James
Shloer
Shloer
Shloer
And of course, some personal work, all based around the Christmas period…
Back at the start of the year we were asked to shoot a range of lovely drinks for Beyond the Bean and the summer drinks range they have been perfecting. 3 days, lot’s of studio based sun and some vibrant colours make some a super summery brochure! We even made a few little things move whilst we were at it!
Lots of drinks perfect for those summer days!
Looking forward to hopefully shooting a moodier winter edition sometime this summer!
I recently shot a selection of drinks for the Beaufort Bar at The Savoy in London. Such an elegant location, and amazing looking drinks made for a beautiful set of images. My personal favourite was the cocktail specially crafter for the BAFTAs, elegant coupe glass decorated with a blue glaze and a shard of glass like ice placed in the top. Beautiful.
Looking forward to the next time I’m in London shooting cocktails!
I was recently commissioned to shoot a collection of images for The Perfume Shop aimed specifically for the Muslim calendar Eid celebrations which are just around the corner at the start of June.
Had a great time shooting some equally lovely products, lots of gold and rich colours in the sets too!
Styling: Olivia Clifford
Art Direction: Clemmie Rubens
I was honoured to be asked to photograph the special afternoon tea inspired by the Chelsea for luxury hotel The Savoy.
I’m sure that you’ll agree that Dan the pastry chef and his team have made an amazing job.
The Savoy asked me to shoot a range of the seasonal cocktails served up in the Knights Bar which is a part of the Simpsons 1828 Restaurant at The Savoy. Located on the Strand in central London, the Knights Bar is tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the street below, offering a relaxing environment to indulge in a cocktail or two prior to a luxurious meal, or they’re happy to just serve drinks. The greatest shame is that I’ve always got to drive after photographing them!
These cocktails were inspired by English allotment flavours and they looked great with such vibrant colours.
Winter can be all a little bit gloomy, especially once the Christmas and New Year festivities have been and gone. Going to work in the dark, going home in the dark. Especially after the great summer we had in 2018. Football, beer and lots of BBQ’s. Well, not all beer - so I shot a few of my favourite summer drinks to get us looking forward to the longer warmer days again.
Aperol Spritz. A summer classic.
Ophir Gin, tonic with lime and ginger.
Gin and tonic, with Elderflower and cucumber.
I was recently commissioned by Wolfburn Distillery to photograph the range of Scottish Whiskys they produce. Simple and effective product photography is a great investment. With the assests that I shot for them they can now provide suppliers and distributors with great imagery too which will make the products stand out in a market busy with competitors.
I’m glad to say that they’re really happy with the results from the shoot, I’m looking forward to working with them again in the not to distant future on some more great projects! Hopefully we can get up to the distillery and do some stuff on location!!
As things wound down for Christmas and seeing in the new year, I found some time to mess around with some Brandy. Fitting for the season! Enjoy!
In recent years, consumers have become ever increasingly conscious about the effect that their habits have on the environment. Possibly none more than the use of single use plastics. A hot topic of the moment.
Plastic bags and straws have provided large talking points, and pressure has been put on businesses to make small changes to help protect the environment.
Things as small as changing plastic straws to paper ones. It’s crazy to think that the plastic in a black straw is non recyclable, and here have been a few videos circulate on social media to highlight the damage done from such a small and seeminglessly harmless product. The one that sticks in my mind was the turtle that had a black straw lodged deep into its nostril. A distressing watch which provoked thoughts that this could easily be prevented.
I've wanted to do a project that looked at these single use plastics for a while now, but I wanted it to be more than just plastic bags. I popped into a few shops and managed to find a whole host of cheap, single use plastic objects, most costing less than £1 for a whole pack of things. I couldn’t believe how readily available and unnecessarily cheap it all was which makes it even worse. 30 plastic forks, spoons or knives that cost just £1 would be around for the next few hundred, if not thousands of years.
Single use plastic is becoming a huge accumulative problem.
Here are the range of things I managed to pick up in about 20 minutes in various high street stores.
Here are a couple of test images from over the summer months when I decided to shoot some Whisky. Both based around a pour, one a more clean cut studio image, and then the other a more lifestyle based image.
Both came with some challenges, the pour into the glass being the most difficult. Getting the pour to meet the glass in the exact spot I wanted proved testing, but with some patience and persistence we got there in the end. Thats what still life imagery is all about!!
When I was younger, I remember my mum saying things like "I've just thrown a cake together." I'm not sure what it was that jogged my memory about that, but it got me thinking about how that could be bought to life in a visual way. Maybe I should have started with throwing a cake together, or, maybe thats something for another time. I thought about the idea for a few weeks and then threw myself into it.
After I'd sat on the idea for a bit, in December 2017 I started to shoot what would turn out to be a long and testing body of personal work.
Starting with breakfast. A full English to be exact. This image would set the framework for the project and how I would execute more of these thrown together images. The trouble was, at this point I wasn't sure how many I wanted to do, or what was going to be next. Things seem to work nicely in three's, but I've got a bit of a habit of shooting series of work that always come out with three final images so I wanted to go further with it than that.
The first image took me two days to shoot. There was a lot of tinkering as you can imagine, but I wanted to make sure that this could be an elaborate and real talking point within my portfolio. As is always the way with the first step of a series or new body of work, you have to find the best ways of doing things. A bit of trail and error, probably lots of swearing as things didn't quiet work out and a bunch of patience goes a long way with this kind of thing. Everything had to be shot near enough where it is positioned in the frame in the final image. Perspectively things wouldn't line up otherwise, something might just look odd about the images, but it would be difficult for the viewer to figure out what if they weren't "visually trained". It was the perfect challenge for me, offered up plenty of problems to solve, which in turn appeals to my precise way of doing things. I guess thats what really makes still life photographers tick.
I can't remember which image I shot next, but after doing so it started to become clear to me that I could do a whole days worth of food. Maybe an indulgent day, but that seemed like a logical way to go with and it would give me a natural order for the images. Now not only did I want to do the dishes, but I wanted to throw in a drink for each stage too. This obviously started with the brew on the breakfast which I didn't really have to think about with a fry up, the rest went from there.
After about 6 months I'd ended up with the images you see below. A little bit of an epic, but worth all the tinkering and eating all the food afterwards!
Sometimes the best work just seems to grow organically.
Full English Breakfast
Smoothie
Cheese Toastie with Tomato Soup (very American)
Surf and Turf
Trifle
Cheese and Biscuits.
Back in the Autumn we were asked to put together a shoot that helped Simpson's In The Strand restaurant, which is part of The Savoy hotel in London. The client's brief was to show the craft that goes into the food and drink at the restaurant. We shot both food and drinks photography as well as video to really show off the talent and the restaurant's processes.
The art direction required a dark and moody feel to the images with some extreme close up's too. It was a pleasure to work with head chef Will Hemming and his brilliant team. The food, as you would expect, was incredible.
Take a look below to see a selection of the stills and a cut of one of the videos. Just be warned: don't look if you're hungry...
We also had some help form DOP Mark Pullon on the day to help create some moving images of the processes we shot stills of. All in all, a very satisfying day with some beautiful food.
