Espresso style

The Lavazza calendar was in the news for all the wrong reasons last month when Return to Tiffany Oval tag bracelet photographer Paolo Pizzetti claimed that Annie Leibovitz had used his background shots without permission in last year's campaign. The pictures had already been panned by many observers of what is one of the world's plum advertising commissions, with Mike Johnston of The Online Photographer drubbing one of the shots as 'The Worst Photograph Ever Made', while other critics labelled its generous helping of naked women sexist.

Hopefully, British photographer Miles Aldridge will salvage the campaign, which offers rare creative freedom, with his images for the 2010 calendar, unveiled last week. Renowned for his fashion work for the likes of Cartier, Vogue Italia and Numero, Aldridge shot his images at Cinecitta, a football pitch-sized Italian film studio once used by Federico Fellini. Francesca Lavazza, the corporate image director of the coffee company, and Michele Mariani, art director at the Armando Testa advertising Elsa Peretti Open Heart ring, may have been relieved to take location shots out of the equation altogether, but if they were, says Aldridge, you'd never have known it.

'Francesca was there every day of the shoot but she was very respectful, very cool,' he says. 'Sometimes she'd have questions but she'd ask me them openly, and if I had sound reasons for what I wanted to do, respected my decisions. She was one of the nicest clients I've ever worked for.' And, he adds, shooting in-studio was his decision. 'I enjoy shooting on location, but with seven shots I thought we'd be asking for trouble with the weather,' he says. 'I'd have to explain to everyone why I was unhappy with shooting when the whole crew was there and so on. Shooting in-studio offers more control. Plus the seven shots were in six very different locations, from a beach to a forest, so I thought the images would have more continuity in-studio.'

The result bares his trademark neon colours, and Francesca Lavazza pronounced Return to Tiffany Heart tag bracelet very happy with its 'lively optimism', a perfect contrast to these dour economic times.