Drink Factory is a Drink and Flavour Research and Development Lab overseen by Tony Conigliaro based in London, UK. Drink Factory collaborates with Chefs, Perfumers, Food Scientists, Sommeliers and Designers as well providing consultancy to bars and hosting seminars across the world. Last year saw the release of the Drink Factory Magazine. We interview London based photographer Addie Chinn on his involvement with the magazine and most specifically Issue 1: Silent Neon Flowers.
What does a usual day of work have in store for you?
As my own boss, every day is completely different. Which I guess is part of why I love my job! One day I might be in a studio in Shoreditch or a speakeasy in the Lower East Side, the next I’m at a distillery in Dufftown or on a speedboat bouncing around Ibiza. (Mostly I’m in cocktail bars with espresso-fuelled bartenders – but that is still one of my favourite places to be in the whole world.)
If I’m booked for a hypothetically ‘average’ single day’s shoot, then my work typically starts the evening before, where I’ll run through the upcoming shots in my head (which we’ve planned a few days earlier), prep and double-check all the appropriate camera and lighting kit, charge the countless batteries, check in with my stylist about all the props, and of course plan for contingencies. On the shoot itself, anything can – and usually does – happen: drink specs change, ingredients (or bartenders) fail to arrive, glassware gets broken, time constraints alter, clients add a few bonus surprises (“while we have you, could you also…”), shots that were great on paper might not be quite as inspiring through the lens… But this is part of the fun of the job. Location photography (and especially when shooting products rather than, say, portraiture) is often about problem solving in the most creative, professional way possible, to the tightest deadline. Which is what keeps me on my toes. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and all that.
When we’re finished (or wrapped, if you’re so inclined), I’ll back up all the images and head home to unpack and have a cold glass of wine. If I’m retouching the photos as well, then that will be how I spend the following day. I’ll start early with a run along the canal or some time in the gym to clear my head and re-set my clunky bones, then the rest of the day is spent in my basement studio, sat in front of my monitor and tablet, working through the images in waves interspersed with playing with my amazing cat (Grayson Purry) and sinking espressos (and later Negronis). I’ll remove all those scratches (damn vintage glassware) and bubbles, correct colours, even out frost lines, and all while churning through whole TV series or schlocky films in the background to keep me sane (or as sane as possible).
How did you come to be involved with the DF Magazine project?
Tony came to me with the idea for Drink Factory Magazine and asked if I wanted to be involved. We had spoken together many times prior to this about how we both felt that these strides were being made in the current wave of food magazines and that there was something really missing in the drinks world. So it’s been an absolute honour to work on it from the very start to the current day.
How would you describe the DF Magazine to someone who hasn't already seen it?
A drinks mag that isn’t a drinks mag. It’s like one of those gorgeously oversized, slightly wanky but charmingly so, unapologetically concept-led, high-end fashion/art magazines that book stores from East London to Brooklyn go ape-shit over. But for cocktails.
As much about the concepts, the over-arching narrative, the unique photography (well, I would say that) and the sexy design as the actual drinks (though they are obviously its core). It’s a kind of an art publication that asks you suspend your disbelief and invites you to step inside it's (admittedly slightly bonkers) world.
Who would you like to see read it?
Everyone and anyone. Whilst it is the very embodiment of niche, it also relates to a spectrum of interests. Aesthetes, boozehounds, food nerds: come one, come all.
Tell us about your style and approach to photography (your 'creative process')?
At the risk of sounding a tad dick-ish, I have come to realize that I value transcience, growth and personal development above all things. Change is the natural state of the universe, not constancy and safety, and it is the latter that so often leads to stagnancy and frustration. This goes as much for life in general as to anything else.
As such, while I would love to say that I have a definitive style, I don’t actually think I do: I am always learning, always reacting, always developing, always testing, always growing, little by little and day by day. To do any less is to tread the path that leads to boredom – both for me and for my clients. I think that’s probably part of why Tony and I get along so well!
That being said, I would say my general style as a drinks photographer is to combine my love of story-telling (my first love was always literature), an understanding of brand-worlds (‘commercial viability’ is neither as restrictive or dirty as I once naïvely assumed), an understanding of what makes drinks appealing (15 years spent making them will do that), and an appreciation of the physics of light (because, in a literal sense, photo-graphy is after all the recording of light; intentionally lighting and shooting semi-opaque liquids contained by transparent yet reflective glassware is definitely as much a science as an art).
I have always thought that all good photographers – perhaps a touch more so with still life photography, but for all styles to some extent – must embody both artistry and nerdistry. From focal lengths and dynamic range, through to correlations between aperture and shutter speed or balancing ambient and strobe light, photographers understand numbers and ratios at an instinctive level, and all while working with colour, form, light, and frame to create a single frame that draws our viewer in and controls their eye. Whether that’s an impromptu portrait of your lover, a sweeping landscape at dusk, or an ad shoot of a diamond necklace draped off a chilled martini (gin, 5:1, lemon twist, natch).
What was the most satisfying and the most challenging part of working on the DF Magazine?
Working with Tony is always a challenge. Ha. Not really. (Okay, sometimes.)
The most satisfying and challenging aspects are actually one and the same. To be a successful creative in this age requires both a unique world-view and a profound self-confidence. Juggling all the many creative individuals involved in producing this magazine from conception to final print (Tony, Zoe Burgess and Max Venning in the lab, Max Spencer who does all the magazine design) is both the very reason for the magazines success and yet can also sometimes provide the greatest struggle.
But on the other hand, if your biggest struggle in life is working through a mountain of incredible ideas with ridiculously talented individuals, then things aren’t really so bad…
Perspective is important. In all things.
Now that the magazine is printed - do you have a favourite shot?
As always, Max [Spencer] did an amazing job with designing the magazine. So while my favourite images on their own are probably the vacuum packed flowers, the cover shot with our fantastic model, or the submerged martini glass full of paint (that was fun to shoot), Max’s layout for the Fig Flower really brought something new to my images.
Submitted July 20, 2015 at 03:11AM by DrinkFactory http://www.reddit.com/r/cocktails/comments/3dxhuu/interview_with_addie_chinn_on_drink_factory/
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