Picture This: Manja Wachsmuth Showcases an Authentic Aotearoa Story of Cuisine

Consummate food and beverage photographer Manja Wachsmuth has won awards and fans with her impeccable Scandinavian sense of elegant composition.  

Manja is currently listed as a Lürzer’s Archive top 200 Ad photographer and creates masterful food photography.  

She also produces captivating product shots, expressive portraiture, and lifestyle imagery that intrigues. 

Danish-born but now resident in Auckland, Manja's work is a testament to photographic power. From darkroom beginnings to culinary artistry, she has become a master of precision and purpose in commercial photography. Especially food and all its intricacies. 

Manja believes in the profound impact of beautiful photos and compelling narratives.

Local NZ OOH campaign for International financial services company. “Celebrating unique New Zealand ingredients, highlighting them as a golden resource integral to the national dining scene. Showcased in the hands of the chefs who utilise them. This is an authentic Aotearoa story of cuisine”.

LBB> What was about the initial brief that intrigued you? 

Manja> When you’re in the middle of your summer holiday and get a call from Dentsu Creative in Sydney asking if you’d like to shoot a campaign for a major International financial services company, you put your white wine spritzer down, get up from your lounge chair, put on your YES hat and call in the best team you’ve got. As a food photographer, a financial service wasn’t on my radar as a dream client, but when I saw the brief, it just ticked all my boxes. I’m a foodie at heart, I love dining out, and I feel closely connected to a chef’s creative process. It has many parallels to photography. After a few hard business years for many restaurants, this brief was the perfect way to support some of my cheffy friends in giving the hospitality scene a kick-start.

LBB> What were your first steps when it came to breaking down the brief and formulating your ideas? 

Manja> The brief broke into the core of some of the things I’d already been working on for a couple of years, photographing chefs, restaurants, and native produce - telling stories about culinary excellence, so there wasn’t much breaking down, but more of a fluid finetuning of what and how we were going to shoot.

LBB> And what were the ideas and influences that you wanted to bring together? 

Manja> The crucial idea was pairing each chef with a native ingredient and working out a series of natural poses that would heroically highlight the produce and portray the chef as our second hero in a non-distinct dining room. 

LBB> What were the interesting or challenging conversations that you had with the art director or client? 

Manja> We had several conversations about which chefs and what produce would be ideal. Because the creative team was based in Australia, but this campaign was to be shot and launched locally in New Zealand, the art director relied heavily on my experience with the local produce and knowledge about food trends here in New Zealand. It was essential to respect the chef’s preference for posing with ingredients they would naturally vouch for in their everyday work. 

LBB> Who were the key members of the team, and what did they bring? 

Manja> First and foremost, I had a close collaborator, all-round creative and food stylist Fiona Hugues. Fiona and I have worked together on many projects and have a working relationship where we “just get each other”. Fiona makes my job easy. She’s fun to work with, always uber-prepared and goes the extra mile. She had a range of foraged foliage and freshly sourced seafood for showcasing our hero produce. I also had a super organised and experienced producer, Briar Pacey, on board to help nut out all the details and crew in terms of shooting remotely so the agency in Sydney could be online for approvals. Furthermore, we had H&M, my trusted senior assistant who knows how I want my lights set up, a digitech and a runner on board.

LBB> How did you approach casting - and how challenging was it to uncover the perfect cast? What was it about the models/actors that you ended up going with that really struck you when you came across them? 

Manja> The client would be providing us with local chefs as talent, as it was a crucial part to them that each chef would be a supporter of the company. I gave them many suggestions for chefs I’d like to work with that I thought would be suitable for the campaign because of their look and character, public persona and experience in front of the camera. Once the client had confirmed their preferred talent, it was up to me to get the best from it.

Reference images, used in the photography treatment, not part of the final campaign.

LBB> How do you generally like to work with your cast/subjects to get the best out of them? 

Manja> What’s important to me is to delve into the heart of my subjects with an unwavering commitment to authenticity. For this reason, I took the brief quite literally, as I often do with any work, and wanted to portray each subject as if they were in their natural habitat and authentically enthusiastic about presenting their hero produce. The aim was to create naturally captured moments as well as it being a hero portrait. 

LBB> And on this occasion, what was it you were really keen to capture in your subject/cast? What was the chemistry like on set, and how did you work with them?

Manja> Prior to our shoot day, I had researched a range of ideas for “how to hold” various produce to showcase it in the best, most natural way to help inspire the talent on set. Some of our produce was particularly slimy and smelly, so we had a lot of laughs trying to capture some naturally enthusiastic and excited moments that would come across as authentic and not silly. One of the things I love a lot about this photo shoot and, in general, is how the crew and cast work together to create something truly outstanding. I never feel it is my sole job to get the best out of a subject, but more so that it is a team effort where everyone works together to create something unique. For this reason, my choice of crew is crucially important, as the chemistry between everyone helps bring the images to life.

LBB> Tell us about the location or setting - where did you shoot and why there? 

Manja> Due to the nature of restaurant operating hours, finding a suitable site to host us for a full 10-12 hour shoot day was a challenge, to say the least. We were almost a bit stuck after pulling all my strings of connections in the hospo scene and even my producer’s contacts. But a cheffy friend came to the rescue with a not-yet-open venue that was fully operational but largely empty. With the moody vibe, natural light and plenty of space, it was the perfect location, and we quickly got the tick from the client.

LBB> How did you approach the mise en scene? 

Manja> We had beforehand scouted the location and made a plan for which chef would be photographed in which area with which produce, which we largely stuck to on set, and came up with a few extra ideas for options. My food stylist prepared and arranged the produce and helped the chefs get a natural and authentic hold that would look great on camera. She’d pay attention to glossiness along the way and ensure the produce wouldn’t dry out.

Reference images, used in the photography treatment, not part of the final campaign. 

LBB> Tech specs - what did you shoot on? Any interesting elements in the lighting or lenses that we should know about? 

Manja> This campaign is photographed using a portrait lens on Fuji GFX 100S medium format. We utilised the lighting in the space, paired with flash to light our hero subject, and strategically placed warm LEDs to create additional ambience in the background.

LBB> What were the interesting technical challenges that this project brought up, and how did you address them? 

Manja> As with all extensive OOH campaigns, the requirements for copy space can sometimes make placement of the talent in the scene tricky. For this, we wanted a lot of room for cropping for a multitude of outputs at the same time as a wonderful bokeh feel isolating our subject in the scene. Of course, now we have AI to help us extend and build the image further to allow for space, but just a year ago, when this job was produced, it was essential for us to keep this in mind. For this reason, we shot a wide range of plates of the background, as well as out-of-focus plates, to place the subject on a softer background than what we were naturally able to achieve in camera. We had a retoucher combine all of this in post.

LBB> How did the day of the shoot go? Any spontaneous opportunities or surprises? 

Manja> The shoot day went well, albeit with a few minor hiccups at the beginning of the day, such as the shoot laptop not being able to run enough HMI monitors to allow for client approvals on set, as well as remote shooting, and location Wi-Fi being disconnected overnight despite checking it with the venue the day before. But we got both of those solved very quickly without delay, thanks to my stellar crew, and we ran the rest of the day smoothly, fitting in a few additional produce options for our client. 

LBB> When considering the final shot, why this particular shot over any of the other takes? 

Manja> My absolute favourite is one of the outtakes from this shoot, the octopus, it’s an absolute winner of a shot. It’s dynamic and has a significant element of surprise. At the forefront of a great image, especially in commercial and advertising photography, is that it is eye-catching. You have a split second to communicate your message, to catch someone’s attention. That happens when there's a synergy between the talent and their subject and me as a photographer, the observer/ capturer of the moment. When shooting lifestyle, I prefer to capture real people in real scenarios and showcase a product at its most beautiful angle. Bringing those two things together and working in unison was the key to this project, and the octopus has all of that, as well as an element of surprise and awe. Additionally, the crayfish version, one of the client's four hero selects of this campaign, also ticks that box. I love how excited our chef is about those crayfish; looking at it from afar, it just pops. It’s easily recognisable and immediately makes you want to know more.

LBB> What is it about this project that stays with you? What made it different to anything else you’ve worked on?

Manja> Working with a client of this calibre was an honour, and the creative team in Sydney were fantastic to work with because they were open to suggestion and collaboration, and able to trust me and my team on the ground with this job. Everyone’s chemistry worked in unison, and together, we knocked it out of the park.