Behind the Lens: Shooting the Guardian Feast App Campaign

When OLIVER Agency and The Big Sky got in touch about a campaign for The Guardian's new Feast app, the brief was deceptively simple: make everyday ingredients look extraordinary.

That's the kind of brief I like. No smoke and mirrors. Just good food, good light, and the pressure of making a carrot interesting enough to make someone download an app.

The idea

The Feast app is built around a simple premise — that anyone can make a feast out of anything. A vegan daughter. A recipe you've been asked for a hundred times. A salad that needs a little more respect. The campaign needed to capture that spirit: food that feels achievable but also genuinely exciting.

OLIVER Agency had a strong visual direction from the start. Clean backgrounds, bold typography, food that floats or pours or drizzles at just the right moment. My job was to make the food earn its place in that frame.

On set

I worked with food stylist Adam Ziska, whose attention to detail made every shot. The roasted carrots needed to look like something you'd actually cook on a Tuesday night — but still stop you mid-scroll. The rhubarb needed warmth without looking like a school dinner. That tension between accessible and aspirational is where the most interesting food photography lives.

Lighting was hard and directional throughout — crisp shadows, strong highlights, textures you can almost feel. It gave the campaign a modern edge while keeping the food at the centre.

The result

Six hero images, each strong enough to stand alone, all working together as a campaign. The kind of work that reminds you why creative collaboration matters — when the agency, the stylist and the photographer are pulling in the same direction, you can feel it in the frames.

You can see more of my commercial food photography here.