Some client relationships go beyond a single shoot and become an ongoing creative partnership, an evolving visual language that you build together over time. My work with Caribou Coffee has been exactly that. Over multiple campaigns and shoots, I have photographed their lifestyle and social content across a range of settings: on location with models and props, in carefully styled tabletop setups, at real Caribou locations, and in environments that evoke the warm welcoming atmosphere the brand has built over three decades. The images have traveled further than most. Used globally for in-store signage, Caribou's photography needs to work at the scale of a wall and the intimacy of a phone screen simultaneously.
Shooting for Global In-Store Signage
When photography is going to live on in-store signage in Caribou Coffee locations globally, the technical and creative stakes are different from social-only content. These images need to hold up at large format. They will be printed and displayed at sizes where every detail, every highlight on a cup, every expression on a model's face is fully visible and fully scrutinized.
Shooting with that destination in mind means prioritizing resolution, precise focus, and lighting that scales.
It also means thinking about how an image reads at a distance. The composition needs to communicate immediately and compellingly from across a cafe, before a customer has gotten close enough to read the text around it. As a lifestyle photographer who works regularly with food and beverage brands, understanding how images will ultimately be used is fundamental to how I approach the shoot. Caribou's global signage requirement shaped creative decisions on every production we worked on together.
The Jelly Tea Launch and New Product Photography
One of the most exciting shoots in our ongoing work together was the launch content for Caribou's jelly teas, a significant new product category for a brand that had built its identity around coffee. New product launches require photography that introduces something unfamiliar in a way that feels both exciting and immediately comprehensible. The audience needs to understand what the product is, want it, and recognize how it fits the brand they already love.
Shooting the jelly teas alongside Caribou's classic drinks, lattes, coolers, and hot chocolates, allowed us to create visual continuity between the new and the established. The jelly teas had to feel like Caribou, not like a departure from it. Using consistent model talent, similar prop environments, and cohesive lighting across both product lines created that through-line while still giving the jelly launch imagery its own fresh energy.
Models, Props, and On-Location Lifestyle Shoots
The lifestyle component of Caribou's photography program involves real people in real or real-feeling environments. Models who feel like Caribou's actual customer base, in settings that evoke the cozy community-oriented atmosphere of a Caribou cafe or the active lives of the people who grab a drink on the go. Casting, wardrobe, props, and location all work together to construct that world convincingly.
Some of our Caribou shoots were fully on location, in actual cafes, outdoor settings, and environments that brought genuine context to the imagery. Others involved carefully constructed setups where props and styling created the impression of a real place. My approach to both is the same: prioritize authenticity, prioritize the feeling that the people in the frame actually want to be drinking what they are holding. Lifestyle photography that reads as forced or performative fails its brand regardless of how technically excellent it is.
Building a Visual Identity Through Consistent Photography
One of the most valuable things a photographer can provide for a brand like Caribou Coffee is consistency, a visual identity that holds together across seasons, campaigns, and product launches so that every image is immediately recognizable as Caribou without being repetitive. That consistency is built through recurring stylistic decisions: light quality, color treatment, model direction, prop selection, composition tendencies.
Working with Caribou over multiple campaigns has given me a deep understanding of what their visual world looks, feels, and reads like, and the ability to create new content that fits naturally into that world while still feeling fresh. If you are a food, beverage, or hospitality brand looking for a photographer who can develop and sustain a visual identity across ongoing content creation, I would love to talk about your program.
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External
Sigma / Travel the Alps with SIGMA’s Lightweight 18-50mm & 10-18mm Zoom Lenses
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