Behind the Scenes: The Kong Strong Energy Drink

This shoot was one of the most challenging I attempted. It began with an old wooden chest I discovered in a house clearance shop, weathered and rusting, which immediately sparked an idea. I filled it with ice and packed it full of Kong Strong energy drinks, imagining it suspended from trees in a kind of adventurous survival scene. You can see that version in some of the behind the scenes shots.

As the project developed, though, I realised the concept worked far better if the chest looked like it had washed ashore on a beach. That change gave the image a narrative, as if the drinks had arrived from some mysterious journey across the sea.

The shoot itself was difficult from the start. The ice was constantly melting under the hot lights, and with a warm model in the studio it disappeared even faster. I tried several different lighting set ups, testing how the reflections worked on the wet chest and the bright cans inside, before finally settling on a balance that felt both dramatic and natural. I also experimented with the arrangement of the drinks, moving them around again and again until the composition sat right. To add more depth, I sourced old rope and draped it across the sides of the chest, giving it more texture and character.

A lot of the final impact came in post production. Using Photoshop, I gave the chest a more weathered look, added seaweed to enhance the washed up effect, and blended textures of sand and water to make it appear as if it had been partly submerged. This extra work brought the idea to life and transformed the shot from an improvised studio experiment into an image that looked like it belonged on a windswept shore.

Looking back, it was a shoot that tested both patience and imagination. What started as a simple idea with an old chest became a piece that told a story, and in the end, that sense of discovery made it one of the most rewarding parts of my project.