What Is Beverage Photography?
Are you a beverage business owner struggling to sell your drinks? You need highly creative images to resonate with your target audience and promote your brand. I've been professionally photographing lifestyle and beverage images since 2008, and I'm here to explain what beverage photography is, including its history, importance, and components.
What Is Beverage Photography?
Beverage photography is a food and lifestyle photography subgenre that shows how you can prepare, serve, and consume drinks. The imagery serves as an experience that makes the drinks look as appealing as possible. The texture, lighting, color, and styling will make you feel as if you can taste the beverage.
Drinks and cocktails are among the most complicated subjects to photograph, so it has its specialty. As a professional beverage photographer, I aim to take thirst-quenching pictures of drinks. To start, let's dig deeper into what beverage photography is about.
History and Evolution of Beverage Photography
In the 1830s, inventor William Henry Fox Talbot took one of the first pictures of food as the main subject. It was a still life containing baskets of pineapple and peaches. Still-life paintings heavily influenced food photography back then.
It was only at the turn of the 20th century when photographer and filmmaker Paul Strand veered away from traditional still life when photographing food. In the 1940s, brands like Aunt Jemima and Crisco produced free promotional pamphlets featuring recipes with pictures.
Photography curator and author Susan Bright says this changed how people ate, especially in the United States. For instance, drinks like orange juice became household objects through cook booklets. Over the years, beverage and drink photography evolved from still-life to lifestyle, which shows the drinks in more relatable situations.
Types of Beverages and Drinks Photography
These sub-specialties can overlap, which is why you must hire a skillful beverage photographer who can integrate these types of drinks photography.
Editorial: This is what people often see in cookbooks and food magazines, including juice, coffee, or wine photos. Beverage photography with an editorial concept may relate to recipes, stories, or an opinion piece.
Commercial: This sub-specialty advertises coffee, liquor, or other drinks. Commercial beverage photography focuses on still-life images for packaging, menus, or marketing materials.
Lifestyle: This aims to portray relatable situations when drinking cocktails or non-alcoholic drinks. Beverage and lifestyle photography naturally shows how to prepare or consume drinks in everyday life.
Components of Beverage Photography
Photographing drinks demands a particular skill set. Understanding the components of beverage photography can help you better understand its concept.
Styling
Styling is responsible for making the images aesthetically beautiful and enticing. It's a complex process considering a brand's message in preparing the drinks for the shoot. I often work with professional food stylists to achieve these goals.
Research industry trends and integrate them into what appeals to a brand's customers.
Craft displays and aesthetically appetizing food presentations.
Arrange the scene visually appealingly, making the drinks valuable and desirable.
Organize the bottles and glasses that appeal to a viewer's perception of taste and aroma.
Setup
The setup is among the most crucial components of beverage and drinks photography because it helps create drinks that look professional yet refreshing. The goal is to combine these technical and creative components. The drinks look enticing without distracting viewers from the primary subject.
Preparing ingredients, backdrops, and props
Considering texture and color contrasts
Controlling studio lights and using natural lighting
Planning the right camera and lens
Considering the best compositions and angles
Technique
The level of difficulty in photographing liquids makes beverage and drinks photography a unique category. It requires a skillful photographer who has mastery of these techniques.
Dramatically lit swirls
Champagne fizzles
Fluffy froth
Condensation and smoke effects
Wine splashes and pour effects
Purpose of Professional Beverage and Drinks Photography
Beverage and drinks photography aims to sell a product, yet taking pictures of a beverage is more challenging than it seems. I'm sharing the purpose of beverage photography and how it benefited my clients from Dallas and across the world.
Appeal to a Person's Sensory
You'll want to make a great first impression as a beverage brand. You can help people imagine how the drink tastes, smells, or looks through imagery. The mouth-watering pictures can speak for themselves and trigger visual hunger in your target market.
Invest in Professional Images
While most people can easily take photos of drinks using phones, these images may not necessarily suit the demands of the beverage industry. Beverage and drinks photography has its nuances. Each professionally photographed image portrays the drink's beauty while ensuring it is usable for most platforms, especially for digital and print.
Tell a Saleable Story
You are in control of what you want your drinks to show. Professional beverage images can shape your business and brand identity, reflecting your values and goals.
Increase Product Sales
Research from OnePoll shows that 53% of its respondents got inspired to try recipes, foods, or beverages after seeing images of them on their social media feeds. What's more, about 30% of the respondents are more likely to notice pictures of specialty cocktails.
Related Questions
How to Take Good Photos of Drinks?
To capture good pictures of images, you must conceptualize, prepare the right styling, and use the proper equipment for the shoot. You'll also need a professional photographer's technical and creative skills to produce well-crafted and quality beverage photos.
How Much Does a Beverage Product Shoot Cost?
The cost of a beverage product shoot varies, although, on average, most professional photographers may charge at least $150 per hour or $10 per image. Each session is unique, so I create custom pricing for my clients. In this way, I can consider the number of pictures, concepts, and required styling.
Where Can I Use Pictures of Beverages and Drinks?
You can mainly use images of beverages and drinks in your marketing strategies. Most of my clients use beverage and lifestyle photography for their websites, social media platforms, email newsletters, print ads, menus, and cookbooks.
Conclusion
Beverage photography is a form of imagery that uses texture, color, and aesthetics to capture the essence of a drink. Being an award-winning beverage photographer, I produce world-class photographs for liquors, cocktails, wines, coffee, and other non-alcoholic beverages. From conceptualization, styling, photoshoot, and delivery— get full-service photography production from Dixie Dixon.