I was going to sell my Nespresso Pixie the normal way.

You know the “meh, it’s clean, it works” (lowballers stay away).  An iPhone snap in dim kitchen lighting with a sad little caption like “Used. Still works. $80. Self-collect only.” Done in 14 seconds.

But no. I made the mistake of having one cup of coffee too many, and suddenly my lizard brain whispered: “What if we made this… a little more extra?”

Next thing I knew, I was standing in Art Friend, clutching sheets of colored craft paper like some deranged Warhol wannabe. I had no real plan—just a vague idea that blue and orange are complementary colors and that surely, surely, this would sell my coffee machine faster than you could say “Caffeine-induced impulse decision.”

The Setup: 
Back home, I cleared a corner of the dining table and began staging what I would call “Nespresso Noir: The Pixie Strikes Back.” I taped the colored paper to the wall with the precision of a deranged set designer with no budget and too much ambition.  I mounted a softbox on my TT600, only to find out the bracket is disintegrating in real time.  The plastic bits becoming sticky, cracking and falling off in pieces.  So I took out the studio lights.  Overkill but, hey, in for a penny…

I took out three lens.  Newly purchased Nikon Nikkor PC (Perspective Control) lens, and a Pentax 645 75mm lens on a ROKR Tilt adapter.  First, I tried the Pentax 75mm lens, I realised the shift is wasn’t necessary.  f/16 pretty much ensured the whole machine was tack sharp.

Then I tried the Nikkor PC lens but for some reason it gave me a bit of vertigo so I gave up.  (Hmm… gonna Google and see if I’m the only one)

Then I tried another new purchase the Helios 44.  Strange little cheap and cheerful lens.  More lomo than actual lens.   The edges are absolutely rubbish but I was gonna vignette+blur it anyway it might work.  I think the look conveys “coffee”.

Copious coffee drinkers we are, there are only three blue pods left.  No problem.  I proceeded to set the camera on 10 sec timer and toss in the air, trying to get that perfect “mid-fall” magic shot. I quickly discovered that gravity is not a team player, and the pods either flew too fast, too high.  Most of it I simply couldn’t get the timer timing right.

Eventually I gave up (it’s a Carousell photo after all).  I carefully compositing them in Photoshop like the caffeine-addled digital artist I never planned to be. So yes, every floating pod you see was faked. You may now take a moment to applaud the sheer absurdity of that sentence.

The Final Result
Voila!  The Pixie is now on the cover of Espresso Vogue. Dramatic shadows, vibrant colors, pods in motion—it was a full-blown sci-fi tribute to caffeination. If this machine doesn’t sell, I might just submit the photo to a contemporary art competition and title it: “Descent of the Java Gods.”

Ooh… I have a Thermomix to sell too…