Desi Daru
Desi Daru
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Liquid
•
Glass
Desi Daru.
Desi Daru asked me to photograph serves made with their two vodkas, the mango and the original, alongside bottle shots of both. The liquid is the reason these drinks exist. Vodka cocktail photography turns easily into a picture of a garnish, and with two vodkas in the range the difference between them has to survive the glass. So I fixed the set and let the vodka do the changing. Every serve sits on a polished travertine ledge against ribbed fluted panels, lit with a single hard source so the fluting throws the same shadow stripes across each frame. Colour carries the flavour, a two-colour gel split behind, magenta into yellow, red into green, tuned to whichever vodka is in the glass.
Garnish is placed rather than dropped. Pomegranate seeds, peach slices, edible flowers and coffee beans sit graphically in the shadow bands, chosen to echo what is in the liquid instead of decorating the top of it. The bottles were lit on the same ledges under the same hard source, so the vodka reads as one liquid whether it is in the bottle or in the glass. Shot in London by David Lineton. Set design: Sammie Sperring.
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