Food and beverage has been an interesting journey for my photography, capturing a range of brands from smash burger startups, to Michelin noted restaurants like Da Vittorio, Shanghai. I was once told that it is clear in my photography that all I want to do is eat the food I’m capturing, it was meant to be a backhanded way to tell me to slow down and spend more time adjusting the details, but over the years I’ve realised that my love for food should be a central point of my photography. If I’m not drooling over my camera straps while capturing these images, how am I going to create delicious content that’s going to help brands get people through their doors to drool on their table cloths?
What goes into a shoot like this?
Most restaurants I work with have a rolling need for content, seasonal menu changes, events, specials, so it’s important to be efficient and cost effective. A menu change is a simple project, in the case of the first section of images, the client received about 30 edited images within 24 hours of the shoot, and the shoot itself took less than 3 hours. Alongside these images the client received a handful of short 15-30 second videos highlighting some dishes as well as other features like the seasonal ambiance of the venue.