Waitrose | Food & Drink Opener

While working with the Art Direction team at Waitrose, I had the opportunity to art direct a food and drink opener in collaboration with the Publications team. This involved carefully balancing imagery and text to create a visually compelling piece. I was fortunate enough to art direct the strawberry shot used for the opener. These openers are always ingredient-focused, featuring seasonal produce that ties into at least one recipe within the publication, giving us creative freedom in terms of composition and photography.

For this particular shoot, I drew inspiration from a reference image where strawberries were sliced and arranged in a floral roundel. Despite the simplicity of using just one ingredient, the shoot took nearly two hours, largely due to the delicate nature of the strawberries, which kept shifting out of place. It was a meticulous process of trial and error, adjusting each strawberry until the composition was just right. Interestingly, standard recipe shoots often take far less time in terms of preparation and production. Being part of this process gave me a deeper appreciation for the time, effort, and teamwork that goes into creating each image.