Colorado Studio Up and Running

Moving a food and beverage photography studio requires careful planning, collaboration, and a few pivots.

The first step is packing, which is no small feat when you’re shooting photos until the last minute. 

I hired a professional packer/organizer, and I am glad I did! 250 boxes and a 16-foot pod later, the studio was on its way from the Bay Area to Colorado. 

The best part? Every single one of my precious props made it to the mountains unscathed!

The next step was hiring a local crew to unpack and organize the prop room, along with the surface library. That way, I got to work with local production and styling assistants. It was a lot of fun and a great success!

Once the unpacking was complete, we decided to give the studio a full test. And what better subjects than some fun foods and drinks that got their starts right here in Colorado?

Wanna see a few highlights? 

Palisade Peach from Breckenridge Brewery is now my favorite beer. Ever. It’s made with some of the best peaches in the country. Both the aroma and the actual flavor are absolute delights for the palate!

Blue Moon is one of many classic IPAs here, so we decided to give it a dreamy foam flow.

Have you heard of Snarf’s sandwiches? My realtor suggested the shop to me, and I loved it so much that I wanted to treat my crew to some Snarf’s too. 

 We decided to pair our lunch with an Oskar Blue’s lager – it looks so beautiful in an IPA glass! The lager was saved until after work was done, of course!

Voodoo Ranger from New Belgium Brewing decided to show up too -- he wanted to check out our new branded pickle ball set. 

Once we’d had our pickleball fun, it was time to roll in the fog machine. Check out the way the fog enhances this footage of Something Brewery’s Hazies Never Say Die! Hazy IPA. We loved the color of this beer!

And of course, man cannot live on beer and sandwiches alone. For dessert, we revisited one of my favorites: Rocky Mountain Chocolate.

I won’t reveal whose hand was grabbing the chocolates in the image below, but suffice to say she liked them a lot!  

But wait! Did you know there are dinosaurs here in CO? We even had one visit our studio! 

 Check it out!

And what better way to start the day than with breakfast? I decided it was time to feature Colorado maple syrup and blueberries from the farmer’s market on set next. 

Yum! Speaking of farmer’s markets, here’s a salad made with ingredients from the famous Boulder Farmer’s Market… 

Now it’s time to leave the studio and visit some of my favorite places. Let’s begin with my favorite spot in the whole world, the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

 Here’s a view of Brainard Lake:

(And the moose that lives there). 

Of course, we brought a few products along on our hike. Once we’d found a likely spot, we started to take pictures of Fat Tire, an amber ale from New Belgium Brewing. 

 Why start there? New Belgium has done so much work to become and stay a sustainable B Corporation. Where better to honor them than in the wilderness, they’re helping protect?

And the fun didn’t stop with one! Check out what we did with cans of Thick Haze IPA and Mama’s Little Yella Pils from Oscar Blues Brewery.

And that brings us to the end of this post. I want to send out a huge thank you to our friends at Total Beverage for all the advice and deliveries! Thank you also to Mokhina Alimova for all the great tests and fun. Of course, I can’t sign off without thanking Sean Thompson for all the prop and surface organization solutions. Thanks to Stephanie Ronco, my copy editor, who helped tell this story. And finally, thank you to Bin Hua, the most talented packer in the whole Bay Area. 

 See you soon! The studio is up and running if you have a project - just give us a shout!