‘Helen was brilliant to work with on my branding shoot for Milk Street Kitchen. She was so friendly and warm, I was quite nervous about the shoot but Helen really put me at ease and made the whole experience a lot of fun! Helen suggested so many creative and lovely set ups to best show off my work and really listened to how I wanted to present my brand.
The resulting photos are stunning and show my work in a really fresh way, giving me loads of new content for my website, social media and marketing materials. I’ve already had a lots of compliments on the pictures and love handing over my new cards to prospective clients! Thank you so much Helen for all your hard work and beautiful photographs’
Milk Street Kitchen is an establishing brand and Ellie, the Cordon Bleu trained owner, was expanding her services to include pop-up patisserie tables, styled and prepared by her as a fresh and delicious alternative to the traditional wedding cake. She wanted to create styled product shots as well as some food flat-lays and product shots to create a look book of her treats.
With styling assistance from Louise Beukes at B.Loved Hive, Ellie decided on two different concepts for the shoot. The first was an elegant, rustic desert table with a foliage wreath and nature-inspired cakes. As she draws on the abundant flavours and colours of the English countryside for inspiration for her cakes, we used props with rustic surfaces and textures as well as lots of fresh fruit. We kept the positioning of the cakes quite loose and I included lots of shots that showed a laden table, including a magnificent croquembouche tower of choux buns filled with fruity curds and silky crème mousseline, decorated with edible flowers and trailing vines.
Some of my favourite images from the branding shoot were flat lays. They aren’t as frequently used for food photography as say for stationery but by involving Ellie’s hands, they give a feeling of movement and also show the act of creation, which links Ellie, personally to her brand, creating a compelling story for her clients to relate to.
The second concept for the branding shoot, continued the inspired by nature theme and used a wildflower meadow backdrop created by the wonderful Blue Sky Flowers to display a stunning three-tier buttercream cake, decorated by larger, romantic flowers. I photographed Ellie adding finishing flourishes to the cakes to highlight the bespoke and personal nature of her work.
As Ellie includes homemade jams and preserves in her cakes, I thought it was important that we had some product shots of those items, as well as some action shots of her working with them. I love the styling of these images; rustic, but with carefully chosen props and colour palettes to make them stand out and feel extremely delicious and tempting (which I can confirm they were!).
You can read a full interview with Ellie about Milk Street Kitchen here
If you would like to learn more about how a personal branding photoshoot can help you communicate with your ideal client and offer you fresh brand imagery or a look book, book a free discovery call.
Thank you to all the team involved in this very fun and tasty branding shoot.
Cakes and pop up patisserie: Milk Street Kitchen
Flowers; Blue Sky Flowers
Table and props; The Toast
Make Up; Chase Makeup
Venue and Styling Assistance; B.Loved Hive