Not all of our work is created here under our lovely studio roof. The VGroup designers are often out and about, art directing various photo shoots from detailed recipe food styling to dynamic corporate portraits, ensuring we get precisely the images we need to use in our work.

We will don head to toe protective outfits for factory shoots, arrange lingerie on lightboxes, put people at ease at corporate shoots or tweeze food into place. They are usually lots of fun, yet typically incredibly busy with plenty of dashing around with props and lists. Therefore these shoots need to be meticulously planned, with accompanying sketches and style notes to ensure we get the shot we want in the time that we have.

One of our most recent shoots was for Natures Way Foods and bringing their product, prepared leaf and fruits, to life in a set of delicious recipes. A lot of background work will go into creating recipe images and a single static image can take a couple of hours to set up. Firstly, a compositional sketch of the recipe will be created with details of any props or styling objects. Food is then prepared carefully for the shoot, which normally means undercooking, neatly chopping, polishing and even painting to create delicious textures, colour and vibrancy. For Natures Way Foods, it is imperative that their products need to look as fresh as possible, so once the frame and props are set we will need to work quickly before the product is affected by the heat from the photographic lights. Individual leaves and fruit pieces are arranged using tweezers and dressings or sauces applied with brushes or syringes. Lighting needs to be as natural as possible, which when the weather is not so good or gloomy, we will use a series of mirrors to bounce the light around a plate of food, keeping the colours of the food as natural and vibrant as possible.

The shots are automatically sent from the camera to a large format screen so details can be checked and any imperfections within the shot dealt with as we go.

And once we are happy that the image is as good as it can be, we sometimes get to tuck into the food!

After the shoot it is not normally “a wrap” for us, where we will return to the studio and select the best images from the days shoot, which can mean picking through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of images, before meticulously colour balancing and retouching any areas that need it.