Working with restaurants is some of the most fun work that I get to do.
My job as the photographer, is to take photos of a restaurant’s food so that when people look at the photos on the website and marketing materials, they get hungry and want to buy the food.
Each restaurant has its own story to tell through the food it serves, through the ingredients, the preparation and the presentation. But the overall process of shooting the food at each restaurant is in essence the same each time.
The difference is the storytelling through each photo.
Branding
My job starts before I even walk into the restaurant with my camera. I study the restaurant’s website, menu and other marketing materials to get a good sense of their brand and their story. This is important to do so that the images for each restaurant shoot reflects the individual business, from the color scheme to the way the food is presented to the way the table is lit.
Without keeping brand image in mind and only focusing on shooting a pretty plate of food, the photos for a farm to table restaurant could look very similar to those from an authentic Indian restaurant.
Lighting
I always use natural light when shooting food. Yes, artificial light can be used to shoot food. But setting up lighting equipment on location at a restaurant is usually not convenient to do. There’s usually not enough space and you don’t want to have an intense lighting set up when there are customers present at the restaurant.
When I walk into the location, I will look for a window where there is nicely diffused light (side light, or back light), with no direct sunlight beaming in. Below, you can see the difference in the two types of lighting.
.jpg "lighting on location restaurants")
If there are no windows with good lighting in the restaurant, I will set up outdoors in the shade to shoot. Overhead/ambient lighting in most restaurants create great mood and eating atmosphere, but aren’t the best for food photography. Natural light helps food look the most appetizing.
Props & Backgrounds
For the most part, I will use what is available in the restaurant. The tables in the restaurant are the same tables that the customers will see the food on, so those are the ones that I photograph on.
On client request, I will bring wood panels to photograph on:
Wood panels make great backgrounds for food photography because they are easy to transport and you can so easy change the look of a photograph without having to change out an entire table. Plus, two sides of the panel means two different colors & looks in one board.
The only other items that I always bring to every shoot are my foam core boards: one white and one black. One for bouncing light back onto the food, one for absorbing light.
Styling
When working with restaurants, I tend to do very little styling work. This is because the way a restaurant presents their dishes is part of their brand and there is no need for me to change it. The only thing I may do would be something small (tweak a piece of lettuce or move some herbs around) so that the food photographs better and cleaner.
Doing shoots with restaurant is such fun. It’s different very time because the style of each chef is different and it’s up to the photographer to portray that through an image.
Fried Oysters
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