Some of the best nights never leave the house. This one starts with chess and a glass of arrack or whiskey, and ends on the carpet with a poker set, a wobbly jelly and Diana Ross on repeat!
Friday Night In is a story built around my husband and me, told in two halves. The early evening is slow and relaxed – a game of chess, whisky over ice, dishes of Sri Lankan snacks – murukku and spiced chickpeas within reach.
Later, after dinner, the shoes come off and everything moves to the carpet – poker chips, playing cards, jelly with a cute glacé cherry on top, records pulled from their sleeves. The kind of night that gets messier and better as it goes!
There’s a lot of my Sri Lankan heritage woven through this. The Ceylon Arrack. The brass oil lamp with its tealight flickering. The silk saris draped over the furniture – one hot pink, one marigold. The snacks you’d find at any family gathering back home. It’s a love letter to nights in, but it’s also a love letter to where I come from.
The set-up The night begins here. The chess board, the Ceylon Arrack on a beautiful hammered copper tray, the liquid catching the light in cut crystal. That pink sari wasn’t just thrown in – it was draped, nudged, re-draped about fifteen times until the folds fell right. Obviously!
The whiskey
The Kavalan Solist earns its place on this tray. A hand reaching for the glass, ice sphere just starting to melt. I wanted this frame to feel like a pause between moves – the moment you sit back and actually think.
The cocktail An arrack cocktail that shifts from mango-gold to deep pink, garnished with dragon fruit. I stood it right on the board among the pieces because, honestly, it deserved to win the game. The gradient in the glass took a few goes to get clean – worth every pour.
Mid-game Cheers! This is the frame that tells you it’s a night for two. No faces needed.
The blur One deliberate slow-shutter frame. The cocktail sweeping past the board in a streak of pink. Sometimes a night in has momentum, and I wanted one image that moved.
Down to the floor The second act. The chess board is abandoned, the poker case is open, and we are on the carpet. Cards mid-hand, chips scattered, a jelly with a cute cherry on top, Diana Ross waiting to go on the turntable. This is the shot where the styling got to be gloriously untidy – the trick was making it look accidental, which takes far longer than making it look neat!
Pudding and stakes The marigold sari glowing under the light, a pink-and-orange jelly straight out of a Colombo tea table, chocolate cake with cream and raspberries. A fork abandoned mid-bite because the hand was needed for the chips. That’s a Friday night in full swing.
Last hand The wide frame that pulls the whole night together – bottles among the cards, records slid out of their sleeves, a sandal kicked off at the edge of the frame. If you look closely, the story of the whole evening is sitting on that carpet.
The world
The palette is pure warmth. Amber and honey from the arrack and whisky. Copper and brass from the trays and the lamp. Deep reds and oranges in the velvet cushions. And then those two shots of silk – hot pink and marigold – cutting through it all like an interruption.
The dragon fruit cocktail carries that pink into the glass, so the colour story runs through the drinks as well as the props.
The light is low and directional, like the last hour of golden light trapped indoors. Deep shadows, warm pools of glow, the flame of the oil lamp doing its work in the corner of frame.
I wanted it to feel like lamplight and candlelight – the kind of light a real Friday night actually happens in – while still holding detail in the crystal, the label, the grain of the board.
Behind the scenes
Almost everything in these frames came out of my own house – including the people! The hands you can see belong to me and my husband, which meant I spent half the shoot in front of the camera and half behind it. The chess set is ours. So is the poker case, and the saris – pulled from my mum’s wardrobe, not a prop house. The records too. Even the jelly, which was made, chilled, turned out and photographed before it could collapse!
Personal projects like this are where I get to test ideas with no brief and no safety net. Every one of them feeds back into my client work – the colour discipline, the storytelling, the styling that looks effortless but absolutely isn’t.
Huge thanks to Charlotte Fuller for styling these scenes – she made the amazing jelly too! See more of her work here.
