Behind the Scenes at Eurobottle: On the Road with Our Regular Photographer, Marit Hazebroek

You’ve probably seen her work: the Eurobottle water bottle that you take to the beach, to the gym, or on trips. Photographer Marit is behind almost all of our images . She helps us show how our bottles are used in everyday life. But how do you take a photo of a water bottle that tells a story beyond just what the product looks like?

“ That’s exactly the biggest challenge,” Marit says. “How do you give the water bottle enough attention in a photo without just taking close-ups?” Together, we come up with a scenario for each shoot where the bottle fits naturally into the scene. And there are often fun stories behind those photos.

From Idea to Photo

Marit has been working as a freelance portrait and documentary photographer for ten years now. “I photograph people—who they are and what drives them.” For Eurobottle, she photographs our static products, such as water bottles and shakers, but that human touch remains. Because a bottle only really comes to life when someone uses it.

Marit has plenty of freedom to do that during our shoots. “Do you have any idea how many different situations and locations you can use it in?!” says Marit. She’s involved in planning the setting and location from the very beginning and also arranges models, props, and everything else we need. “I usually come on board halfway through other projects. But with the Eurobottle shoots, I’ve been in the passenger seat right from the start.”

That also means working together to find the right balance. The bottle needs to be visible, without every photo being a close-up. “First of all, I try to create realistic moments. How would you actually use the product in real life?” That’s why things are often actually in motion during a shoot. A water bottle comes along while longboarding, sits in the side pocket of a backpack during a hike, or is carried in a crate for a group of surfers.

A longboard, sand dunes, and a little Photoshop project

Of all the Eurobottle photo shoots, the first one with Marit is the one that has stuck with me the most. The model, a good friend of hers, used to ride his longboard along the beach and through the dunes a lot back then. So the location was chosen quickly.

“I really like the photo of him zooming by with the water bottle in his hand. The motion in the shot, the water bottle clearly visible, the colors—yeah, it’s great.”

That shoot also taught her a lesson for all future sessions: ask models to clean their nails beforehand. Her boyfriend had been digging around in the dirt just before the photoshoot. “Luckily, we have Photoshop.”

And sometimes it’s not the location, but the product itself that’s the challenge. During a shoot, Marit tried to capture our valve cap in action. “Try capturing what it looks like when you spray water into your mouth in a normal way. Nine times out of ten, it doesn’t look very sexy,” Marit says . Behind the scenes, at any rate, there was a lot of laughter.