The Color of Cannabis: Shooting Garcia Handpicked and Strane for Holistic Industries

Maryland Connoisseur
2 days ago
6 min read

When Holistic Industries brought me in to photograph two of their flagship cannabis brands—Garcia Handpicked and Strane—I knew it would be a visual paradox. Both fall under the same parent company, but the worlds they inhabit couldn’t be more different. Think tie-dye van parked next to a tactical black SUV. One whispers peace, love, and jam bands, while the other growls industrial cool, no-nonsense potency.

Strane cannabis product lineup featuring black-and-yellow packaging, vape, grinder, pre-rolls, and lunchbox-style tin with graffiti-inspired branding on a white platform against a black background. — The Strane lineup — bold, urban, and unapologetically industrial. Shot with directional lighting to emphasize contrast, texture, and the brand’s confident street-style design.

This was one of those shoots where you have to toggle between two completely different creative headspaces—without losing your own in the process.

Strane Commando sativa flower bag with bold yellow brick pattern and black text, accompanied by cannabis buds on a gray background. — Strane Commando — premium sativa flower in packaging that channels raw energy and attitude. The yellow brick design pops under crisp, controlled lighting.

Garcia Handpicked — Psychedelic Reverie Meets Product Photography

Garcia Handpicked’s aesthetic is a technicolor love letter to the ’60s—psychedelic marbling, fluid colors, and that unmistakable Jerry Garcia silhouette floating like a benevolent ghost of Woodstock past.

Two Garcia Handpicked cannabis pouches with psychedelic rainbow marble designs and buds displayed on a pink background. — Garcia Handpicked in technicolor. A nod to Jerry’s spirit — vibrant, nostalgic, and infused with a sense of creative freedom.

For this part of the shoot, I leaned into that acid-dream nostalgia by choosing vivid color backdrops—pinks and blues that make the packaging pop without overwhelming it. The brand’s already doing the heavy lifting with its rainbow swirls, so my job was to frame the chaos with a sense of rhythm. Think color theory meets guitar solo.

Lighting Setup:

Godox AD200 Pros in portable softboxes
One strobe raking across the front to accentuate reflective surfaces
A secondary light for sculpting dimension in the packaging folds
Polarizing filter to keep glare off the mylar and preserve that fluid color swirl

The Garcia packs are a nightmare for reflections and a dream for creativity. They reflect everything, including your soul if you stare too long. I shot on the Sony A7R V for its dynamic range, paired with my Sony 90mm G-Master Macro, so I could capture texture and color detail without flattening the gradients.

Macro photograph of a cannabis bud showing dense trichomes, pistils, and frosty texture on a dark background. — Trichome close-up — the crystalline micro-world of cannabis, captured in sharp focus with the Sony G-Master 90mm macro lens.

The buds themselves are dense and trichome-heavy, which means light positioning is critical. Too harsh, and you blow out the frost. Too soft, and it looks like compost. The sweet spot is that delicate shimmer where every pistil and crystal seems suspended midair.

“Garcia Handpicked isn’t just selling flower—it’s selling nostalgia in a ziplock. You can almost hear the guitar feedback when you open it.”

Garcia Handpicked flower jars with red swirl design labels on a tan background, flanked by cannabis buds. — Garcia Handpicked’s premium flower jars — classic design meets retro psychedelia, blending modern branding with timeless counterculture aesthetics.

Strane — Controlled Chaos in Yellow and Black

And then there’s Strane, the rebel cousin who skipped art school and started a tech company instead. Where Garcia is fluid, Strane is angular. Where Garcia hums, Strane buzzes.

Two Strane pre-rolls displayed diagonally across a yellow-and-black split background with Strane branding tag. — Pre-rolls with punch — Strane’s black-and-yellow brand DNA distilled into a simple, high-impact composition.

The visual DNA of Strane is black and yellow—graffiti energy meets premium packaging. I wanted to lean into that streetwise confidence, so the lighting went harder, the shadows deeper, the contrast higher.

Strane cannabis products arranged around a graffiti-inspired tin case with stickers, including flower, vapes, and pre-rolls, on a slate-gray background. — The Strane collective — product family portrait showcasing flower, vapes, and accessories in signature graffiti-black branding.

For Strane, I switched over to a black-on-gray environment with strong directional light to emphasize edges, texture, and the brand’s bold graphics. The Godox AD600Pro gave me clean control for product reflections, and I used small foam-board flags to carve highlights precisely where I wanted them—especially on glossy tins and vape surfaces.

Strane Dragon Fruit THC gummies arranged in a circular pattern around the tin container on a black background. — Sweet rebellion — Strane Dragon Fruit gummies styled with playful symmetry and bold red contrast against the black stage.

Each product in the lineup demanded its own tone:

The gummies called for a more playful, graphic symmetry—red pieces arranged around the round tin like an edible solar system.
The pre-rolls needed attitude—placed on the branded roller with a hint of asymmetry for that “caught mid-session” realism.
The vape? A lone soldier in a vignette spotlight—half industrial object, half fashion accessory.

Close-up of Strane yellow-and-black vape device with soft spotlight gradient on a dark background. — Industrial elegance — Strane vape photographed under spotlight to highlight its minimalist design and gradient finish.

“If Garcia Handpicked is a jam session at sunrise, Strane is the afterparty in a warehouse with flickering lights and questionable decisions.”

Strane’s entire identity thrives on tension—high design meets urban grit. To honor that, I played with depth and perspective, letting certain shadows cut hard across the product line while others faded softly into the matte black. The aesthetic is cinematic, more Christopher Nolan than Ken Kesey.

Two Garcia Handpicked cannabis pouches with swirling rainbow artwork on a bright cyan background and shadows cast below. — Garcia Handpicked’s signature marbled design pops against electric blue — color therapy in cannabis form.

Garcia Handpicked and Strane: The Gear That Bridged Two Worlds

I ran the entire shoot on the Sony A7R V, because when you’re photographing glossy packaging with reflective foil, you need all 61 megapixels to capture the subtleties.

Here’s the quick gear breakdown:

Sony A7R V with Sony G-Master 90mm Macro
Laowa 100mm 2x for extreme detail on trichomes
Fotopro Carbon Fiber Tripod for stability and portability
WeMacro Rail for precise focus stacking when shooting macro bud detail
Godox AD200 Pro strobes with collapsible softboxes
Helicon Focus software for stacking up those razor-thin macro depth planes

Each frame was shot tethered to Lightroom for real-time adjustments, ensuring color consistency between the two brand palettes. Nothing ruins the mood like realizing your blues shifted green halfway through a product lineup.

Strane Double Pre-Roll — sleek, minimal, and built like a statement piece. The industrial black tube contrasts cleanly against the matte backdrop, emphasizing the brand’s modern edge.

Two Brands, Two Worlds, One Lens

The fascinating part about shooting Garcia and Strane side-by-side was realizing how color communicates personality.

Garcia Handpicked invites you in. It’s warm, nostalgic, whimsical—the kind of brand that says, “Sit down, have a puff, listen to the long version.” It feels communal, like passing a joint around a campfire.

Garcia Handpicked Double Doobie pre-roll tube with two joints against a pastel pink background, casting long shadows. — Garcia Handpicked Double Doobie — two half-gram joints of Florida Kush framed in color and nostalgia. Shot with vibrant contrast to match the brand’s psychedelic palette.

Strane, by contrast, looks you dead in the eye and says, “This is next level.” It’s edgy, confident, and minimal—designed for those who already know what they want.

By the end of the shoot, the studio looked like a mood swing in physical form: one side awash in pinks and blues, the other drenched in hard yellow light and black contrast. Somewhere in between sat me—trying not to knock over a strobe while switching from dream-state to dystopia.

Four Strane flower bags — Alien Mints, Gator Breath, Lemon Maraschino, and Super Gremlin — arranged on a dark surface with yellow paint streaks behind them. — The Strane lineup in formation — graffiti-styled and unapologetically bold. Each strain carries its own attitude, united by that signature yellow brick motif.

“Sometimes product photography is less about lighting and more about anthropology—you’re studying tribes through packaging.”

Lessons From the Session

Color is language. Garcia’s palette tells stories in swirls; Strane’s speaks in shouts and edges.
Packaging dictates lighting. Glossy mylar reflects chaos; matte tins eat light and crave contour.
Personality drives framing. Garcia gets soft gradients and floating compositions; Strane gets structured geometry and negative space.
Shooting multiple brands at once is like DJing different genres. You can’t transition from The Grateful Dead to Nine Inch Nails without recalibrating your brain and EQ.

Strane Dragon Fruit gummies displayed with open and closed tins on a bright yellow background, showing sugar-coated red cubes inside. — Strane Dragon Fruit Gummies — bold flavor meets streetwise design. A pop-art burst of yellow, red, and rebellion.

And that’s the point—photography isn’t just about showing what a product looks like. It’s about making you feel what the brand believes.

Conclusion: The Spectrum of Cannabis Branding

Holistic Industries has created a fascinating brand ecosystem where Garcia Handpicked and Strane coexist without overlapping—a testament to how diverse modern cannabis culture has become.

Strane cannabis tin with bright graffiti-style stickers surrounded by Alien Mints and Gator Breath flower pouches and buds on a slate-gray surface. — Strane family portrait — unified by edge and energy. Premium flower and design-forward branding shot with precision and contrast.

On one side, there’s art, nostalgia, and color. On the other, precision, confidence, and rebellion. Shooting both in one session was like photographing yin and yang in THC form—an aesthetic collision that perfectly encapsulates the evolving cannabis market.

As a photographer, it was a reminder that no two brands deserve the same treatment—and that sometimes, the best way to highlight contrast is to shoot both sides under the same roof.