These cold and wintery times call for one thing to get yourself ready to face the day...Coffee, and plenty of it! The concept of this image has been in my mind for a couple of days now. Little did I know, that with the help of another very creative mind we were about to make something even better than I had first thought.

Initially I set the shot up on a granite work surface, against a white tiled wall and used a red gel'd speedlight zoomed @ 105mm to create a hot spot on the wall. The coffee cup would be in front, lit by a seperate speedlight and have coffee beans poured into it, spilling everywhere (literally). The image was sharp, well lit......but it wasn't quite right.

This is where two creative minds are always better than one. It's great to team up with someone who has similar inspiration and drive as yourself to bounce ideas off each other.

The image was too cold, quite literally the opposite of what coffee is. So to warm it up, I wanted a background with a similar tone to the coffee beans. I would then light this with an orange gel'd speedlight to add seperation. With the help of Hannah Couzens we turned her kitchen into a complete and utter mess. I'm sure she'll be finding coffee beans for many weeks to come, and for which i'm sorry! Hannah managed to find this fantastic brown leather box lid, which made for a perfect backdrop.

The above is a setup shot, shown where my strobes were placed. A Canon 580EXII Above Cup and Canon 430EX Zoomed Right of cup with Full CTO Gel. Triggered via Pocketwizards. ISO160 | 200mm | ƒ/7.1 | 1/100th second

The final image is actually a composite of two shots which gave me the beans falling how I wanted. A simple crop to give the desired frame, et voila! Perfect print for a kitchen I think! :)