Coffee Roaster Brand Photography Reference Board

Reference board for a small coffee roaster's brand shoot: key frames, shot list, light and colour rules, people, place and the roast-day call sheet.

Updated November 1, 2026

This board was built for a single roast-day shoot at a small coffee roaster, with the aim of leaving the business a library of pictures it can draw on for a year: the web shop, a wholesale deck, the shop window and a newsletter. Before collecting any references we settled the light, the season and the place, late autumn mornings in a brick unit with one window doing the work, so that every image on the wall looks as if it came from the same day. The first section is the wall itself. Six key frames run in the order the coffee travels, from green beans in jute to the drum, the cooling tray, a handful of fresh roast on its way into the bag, the grinder at the bar and the finished pour-over. Beside the grid sits the shot list with a place and a time for each frame, plus the room and yard wides, and a note explains why the frames run in that order and which lenses and crops to use. A short clip of the cooler arm and a recording of the roaster give whoever cuts the motion pieces something to work with. Product and pack has its own column because pack shots are where brand shoots most often drift into studio habits; the note there sets rules for the bag, the cups and the crops. People and place keep the team at work rather than posing, with hands first and faces only in passing, and show the unit, the shop, the yard after rain and rain running down the shop glass. Light and colour hold the rules everything else depends on: a palette pulled from the roast itself, from green bean to full city, kraft and wet brick, a reference picture of raking window light, and a saved painting whose single side window is the model for the light. The last column holds the brief, the checklist for the days before, the call sheet and a cluster of recce outtakes. If you are making your own brand photography mood board, start with the light and the place, then let the shot list follow the product's journey from raw material to the thing a customer holds. Photos by Yasin Onuş, Alejandro Aznar, Bia Sousa, Los Muertos Crew, Carlo Jünemann, Anna Tarazevich, Enes Faruk Yarar, Bayram Yalçın, Andrew Neel, Andy Lee, Esra Afşar, Alari Tammsalu, Zen Chung, Thirdman and mh simba chaichi on Pexels. Sound: "WWS EmptyingCoffeeRoaster" by Work With Sounds / Werstas (CC BY 4.0) on Wikimedia Commons.

A × visual grid — Key frames (6 images and 6 notes) — view it on the board above.

01 Green in jute
02 Drum, side on
03 Cooling tray
04 Handful of roast
05 Grinding to order
06 Pour-over, hero

Pack shots

Pack shots live on the counter or the shelf, never on a sweep.
- 250g kraft bag, label turned 3/4, roast date side readable
- one bag per frame; the range shot is the shelf, not a pyramid
- beans only where a real scoop would drop them, no scatter
- shop stoneware in sand glaze, no white porcelain
- 4:5 for web tiles, 1:1 for the wholesale sheet
Ada cleans dust and prints only. The chips in the glaze stay.

Espresso, low key

Scoop at the bin

Hands, not faces

People — hands first

Three of the team, all happy to be in it, none posing.
- Dele, head roaster: trier and cooler, sleeves rolled, apron on
- Marta, packing: hands at the scale and the heat sealer
- Ines, counter: grinding and pouring, shot from behind the bar
Faces only in the yard wides, and only in passing, never to lens. Nobody holds a cup up to camera. Release forms signed with Kofi before 09:00.

Unit 4, west wall

Shop at opening

The yard after rain

Shot list — Thu 12 Nov

#
Frame
Where
Time
01
Green in jute, sack wall
Green store
08:30
02
Drum side on, Dele at trier
Roast floor
09:15
03
Cooling tray, arm turning
Roast floor
09:40
—
Room wides, west wall
Unit 4
10:00
04
Handful of roast, into bag
Pack bench
11:15
05
Grinding to order, Ines
Shop bar
11:50
06
Pour-over, hero
Shop counter
12:15
—
Yard wides, wet cobbles
Tanner's Yard
13:30

How the frames run

Wall order follows the bean, not the clock.
- 01–03 run raw to roasted, all on the drum side of Unit 4
- 04 is Marta's hands at the pack bench, straight off the cooler
- 05 and 06 are the web shop's; shoot each 4:5 and 1:1
- every frame gets a tight, a mid and one wide for the library
- 35mm and 50mm only, f/2.8 to f/4, no macro
Prints of all six go up at A5 by the roaster on the day so Dele can see what we're after.

▶ Cooler arm, turning (plays on the board above)

♪ Roaster at first crack — 0:36 · 0 BPM · M4A (plays on the board above)

Roast floor palette

Green bean — #8b8a5c
First crack — #a9683a
Full city — #4b2e20
Kraft bag — #c3a47c
Wet brick — #7b3f2e
Steamed milk — #ede4d4

Brief — brand library

What this is for

One shoot day that gives Hollowmill a library to draw from for a year: the web shop, the wholesale deck, the shop window and the newsletter. Around 120 selects, graded to one look.

What it has to show

Product: the 250g bag, the cup, the grinder at the bar

Process: green to roasted to ground, on the 15 kg drum

People: Dele, Marta and Ines at work, hands before faces

Place: Unit 4, the shop, Tanner's Yard after rain

The look

A late autumn morning in a brick unit. One window, side

Before Thursday

[x] Print the six frames at A5 for the wall
[x] Book black floppy, 4x4 frame and C-stands
[x] Dele to hold back a sack of Huila green
[ ] Release forms: Dele, Marta, Ines
[ ] New 250g bags from printer (proofs Tue)
[ ] Shop shut 11:45–13:00 sign on the door
[ ] Cards cleared, batteries and tether charged

Raking light, 10:40

Light — one window

One source, from the side, every frame.
- west wall windows until 11:20, when the sun leaves the unit
- no fill; black floppy on the shadow side
- roaster display and shop pendants are the only warm practicals
- underexpose a third and let the drum go to black
- no flash, no haze, no LED panels in frame
What we take from the Milkmaid: light in from the left, falling off before the back wall, and the pour as the one moving thing.

The Milkmaid (Vermeer)