Liquors Galore

Late last week I got a call from my friend Dan at U Productions who asked me to take some shots to be used in a TV commercial they are working on. The 30 second spot is for a really beautiful new liquor store on avenue J in Brooklyn called Liquors Galore. Most of the shots that the video crew took were tight close-ups of bottles and the actors, but the viewers never got a feel for what the entire store looked like. I was asked to take some still images that could be used in the commercial to demonstrate just how vast the store and it's selection of products really are. The images needed to include as much of the store as possible. The editors would then briefly pan through the shot so that it matched the motion shots that made up the rest of the video.

Below are the five shots that I presented to my clients as well as a quick video that I put together demonstrating how each image could be panned within the spot. Both of my clients, the U Video Team and the store owner, were thankfully very pleased with the result and are considering using the fifth shot for the commercial.

Liquors Galore from M.Kruter on Vimeo.

Strobist info (tech notes): Canon 30D/EF-S 10-22 on a tripod for exposures of around 1 second+ @ f11. Pocketwizards were used to fire one 580ex on a lightstand, one 285 on a lightstand and one 285 either handheld or on the floor (the foot is broken). Each image is a composite of several shots that were taken with the lights pointed at different points within the scene.

While I had two AB800's with me as well as two WL800's there was absolutely no place to bounce any light and it would have been a hassle to set up cords, diffusers and large lightstands since the store was open while I was making these images. Considering this is basically a still life I decided instead to use a tripod and slow shutter speed and combine shots when necessary. Initial editing was done in LightRoom with final composites and corrections done in Photoshop.