Whisky & Melancholy

My client Spirit of Hven hired me for a commercial shoot of their new whisky serie Seven Stars Alioth. I had free hands, since we have been working together for 9 years they have been accustomed with me delivering commercial product pictures that will go around the world pawing the visual road for their new product . So the pressure was on me to deliver a picture that would hype their their award winning spirits to the next level. 

It was right after the election of 45th American president and together with a majority of the sane inhabitant of the planet I was in a mild shock,

So I let my feelings take over, which was filled with frustration and fury which eventually turned to melancholy. Now this is not the standartdemotions to be confronted in making a mood board for an commercial shoot, but I indulged the feeling while having a glas of the local and organic nectar of the Stars with a friend of mine. 

He read the poem "Hope" by Emily Dickinson ( one of America’s greatest and most original poets of all time ) that inspired me.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops,  at all

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest Sea
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

I went out on a cold winter night and brought a heavy yet perfect round stone that I had found for the occasion.  I had build a rig for my external flash to be placed behind the bottle. I wanted the whisky to symbolise a lighthouse on a lone island, to guide those in the dark into safety . The lighthouse ripple effect in the water was another ambitious part, that would be impossible to make in photoshop.  

Despite losing gear into the ocean, swearing over the cold water and winds numbing my body,  I finally managed to create the picture I wanted.