It’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these! My bad – I guess being busy has it’s down sides.

Anyhoo, I recently hooked back up with the guys at HIVE MIND to shoot some promotional product photography for their latest creation – rum aged traditional mead.

Promotional product image of a bottle of Hive Mind rum aged mead set in a coastal, shipwrecked styled setting. Shot as part of a promotional marketing shoot, Nov 2024.

Given the rum, and the beautiful illustrated pirate label design, the guys wanted to run with a shipwrecked theme. Fortunately I live five minutes away from the river Severn welsh coastal path, so I was spoiled for choice when it comes to location spots. All we needed was a sunny day ☑ (contrary to the shots, it was a freezing November afternoon!).

Promotional product image of a bottle of Hive Mind rum aged mead set in a coastal, shipwrecked styled setting. Shot as part of a promotional marketing shoot, Nov 2024.

I’m really happy with the results from this particular shoot – It’s amazing what you can achieve with a pebbly beach, driftwood and some low sun.

Drink up me hearties, yo ho!

Promotional product image of a bottle of Hive Mind rum aged mead set in a coastal, shipwrecked styled setting. Shot as part of a promotional marketing shoot, Nov 2024.
Promotional product image of a bottle of Hive Mind rum aged mead set in a coastal, shipwrecked styled setting. Shot as part of a promotional marketing shoot, Nov 2024.
Promotional product image of a bottle of Hive Mind rum aged mead set in a coastal, shipwrecked styled setting. Shot as part of a promotional marketing shoot, Nov 2024.
Promotional product image of a bottle of Hive Mind rum aged mead set in a coastal, shipwrecked styled setting. Shot as part of a promotional marketing shoot, Nov 2024.
Promotional product image of a bottle of Hive Mind rum aged mead sat on a piece of drift wood. Shot as part of a promotional marketing shoot, Nov 2024.

This shoot was almost a year in the making! Meg, the singer and band leader from the recently branded Idle Minds (formally known as SouthBound), emailed me over a year ago after the original COVID-19 lockdown to try and organise a shoot. They’d recently had a member leave the fold and wanted a fresh batch of promos to portray the bands’ image going forward. Meg is a photographer herself (shout-out!) and had a clear idea of what she wanted which included the band smartly dressed juxtaposed with a rough, overgrown backdrop. We’d been in conversation for some time but due to the global-event-that-shall-not-be-named and people’s availability, it took a long time to put plans into action.

Band stood beneath decommissioned mineshaft on a cold autumn morning


We’d toyed about with a few ideas but eventually settled on utilising the industrial vibe of Newbridge and its surrounding areas as a location and as luck would have it, by the time we got round to actually shooting, winter had come around and we were treated to a beautiful crisp morning (bit of an understatement – it was bloody freezing) with lots of light and autumnal colours which provided a rusty quality to the style of the shoot.

I lit some of the earlier shots with a softbox to add a consitent feel across the images. I’m normally one to remove a lot of colour saturation from my work but with this I wanted to keep that orangey rust-like tone, whilst removing a lot of blue hues from the sky so that the skin tones and landscape had colour priority.

Despite the moody aesthetic that seems to ever creep into my work, the band themselves were incredibly easy to work with and not ones to take themselves too seriously. These are always the best kind of people to work with and help you to feel like they trust you without trying to micromanage the session. In fact we joked it could have easily been a promotional shoot for a new estate agent company rather than a band.

It was great to finally get around to making things happen and all the waiting and planning eventualy worked out for the best. I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Idle Minds. Cheers guys!

Band members stood in abandoned mining field with mineshaft in the background
Moody black and white shot of group with high contrast shadows