For our Summer 2021 lifestyle shoot we wanted to capture our ice cream in a new light – encapsulating the glistening, blue-skies feel of a hot, summer day.

Working with our regular collaborators Helena Rose Photography and Harriet Langsbury Styling, we picked the most iconic of ice cream settings – the Great British seaside – as the backdrop to show off our retail flavour range.

In her words, Helena shares her behind-the-scenes insights about how they brought this all together into a collection of stunning summery images…

Searching for sand and sea 

We took to Instagram to research the best beaches and swim spots in the area and settled on Clevedon Marine Lake for its waterfront, a few short stretches of beach and its quintessentially British pier. We dropped Pin Number 2 in the map at Sand Bay Beach, not far from Weston-Super-Mare – and crossed our fingers for sunshine on the day. 

Creating a summery vision

A few of our ‘must have’ shots were beachside ice cream imagery, as well as a summery picnic set up. Creating a mood board in advance not only helps us to structure the shoot day, but to plan what props to bring to create those scenes. 

Once we’d decided on the locations, we needed to get the ice cream there. The logistics of a shoot with a meltable product are always a little complicated, but we knew we could pull it off with some teamwork.

On the morning of our shoot we loaded up two portable freezer boxes full of ice cream to carry with us from location to location.  Multiple hands make light work and we recruited our model Jon and Harriet to help carry the ice cream around (if you thought photoshoots were all glamour, we’re here to correct that notion!). 

A few hot tips for shooting with ice cream

• Bring a few flasks of cold water to wash your scoops on the go 

• Bring multiple tubs of the same ice cream because they will melt!

• Bring multiple scoops for different flavours 

• Bring a few tea towels to clean, mop and wipe bowls, hands and scoops 

The Value of Post-Production

We got reasonably lucky with the weather and enjoyed pockets of sunshine throughout the day. However, we were still in the UK and so the Hue/Saturation/Luminance slider in Adobe Lightroom came in pretty handy when editing some of these images, as I wanted the sky and the water to feel really like ‘I’m on holiday’ blue. With a bit of editing in Lightroom, I got the result I was looking for.

Setting up a picnic 

If you’ve never set up a ‘posh’ picnic on the beach and started photographing it with heckling onlookers, you’re missing out. Our amazing stylist Harriet brought this neutral blanket, wicker basket, pinch dishes and bowls to create this whimsical summery set up. 

After a full day in the intermittent sunshine, racing from location to location and contending with alternately melting and freezing scoops of ice cream, we were ready to call it a wrap, pack the car and head home.