HOW CAN I GET THE MOST OUT OF MY RESTAURANT PHOTOSHOOT?
Congratulations! You’ve booked a photoshoot for your restaurant, which is definitely one of the better investments that you can make in your business, and you are absolutely right, you really do need to plan for your shoot so that you do get the most out of it. But this question is also slightly subjective, as you could be thinking in terms of how to obtain the most images in the planned time, how to receive the most important images for you, or how to show off your restaurant as well as your food. These are all valid questions and so I’ll cover them all in this post.
How to maximize the number of images you receive
We would generally aim for 2-3 images per hour, so the first thing that I would stress is not to push your photographer for significantly more images than they are comfortable delivering. By doing that the only thing that will suffer is the quality of the images that you receive, and that is definitely not good value for your money. Good quality images will help sell food, poor quality images…I’ll let you finish the sentence. Let’s just say that sacrificing image quality for image quantity can be a tradeoff that quickly backfires.
If image quantity is important to you then I can suggest a few things that you could do to make your photographer’s life a little easier, which will save time and help them deliver all the images you need. The time that your photographer needs to create each image is partially related to the number of elements each image contains. Reducing the number of elements in each image will speed up the creation of that image. Elements refer to both food and props and the more you have of each, the longer it will take your photographer to compose the scene and light it. Do you really need that additional basket of bread, or those salt and pepper pots that are casting shadows across the juicy steak that is the hero of the shot. And as a result, are driving your photographer crazy? Time is money. If you need all your selected elements then fine, but if not then simplification will help the photographer create the image you need so that they can quickly move on to the next one.
Another element that can eat up time during a photoshoot is the surface that the plate sits on, although some people call it a background. Changing surfaces during the photoshoot also eats up time. To change the surface, all the props have to be removed one by one and then rearranged again on the new surface. This takes up valuable shooting time, so the fewer changes that are made, the quicker your images will be created. Personally, I believe restaurant images should capture the spirit of the restaurant. Photographing meals in various parts of the restaurant is something that I recommend, whereas shooting food on an artificial surface may contribute to the image looking a little false. My post What Happens When We Arrive At A Restaurant Photoshoot throws a little more light (that was an accidental pun, honest) on shooting in different areas of your restaurant.
How to receive the most important images for you
I would suggest giving some thought to this in advance and producing a priority shot list for your photographer, delivered ahead of time. Based on the shoot duration you should be able to calculate how many images are likely going to be created, but I suggest adding a few more to your list as well, but as low-priority images. This provides two benefits. The first is that both your photographer and your chef understand which images are the most important to you so they have their initial “marching orders” for the shoot day and they can quickly get to work on creating those images in the confidence that they are working on those that are most important to you. The second is that if the day goes smoothly, and having a shot list will help in that regard, just maybe your photographer will be able to squeeze in an extra shot or two at the end. If this is the case then again, both your photographer and chef will know what needs to be done to make that happen, even if you are not present.
How to use your images to show off your restaurant
The obvious thought here may be to take additional shots of areas of your restaurant, and should your budget allow then that is the ideal approach to take. But if your budget is tight and you prefer to avoid doing this then there is also a second approach. Understand that the initial challenge for any restauranteur is to encourage potential customers to walk through their door. So as well as capturing tantalizing food images it can be worth dedicating a little time prior to the shoot to analyze the restaurant and figure out what could be good vignettes, scenarios, or settings that may entice potential customers to know more about the restaurant as a whole, as well as its menu. Photography is generally concerned with answering questions for the image viewer, but when shooting for restaurants the opposite can apply, as it can be wiser to create the image in such a way that it asks questions of the viewer. We want to encourage the viewer to want to know more about the restaurant and answer our questions. That’s something that builds a degree of intrigue into each shot. Our goal is to show the viewer hints about various areas of the restaurant and make them want to visit so they can see more, fill in the blanks and answer their questions about what the restaurant actually looks like. Now your images can do double duty and gain you a little more value for your money.
The Take Away
I understand that margins are tight in the restaurant industry but photography is an ideal investment to help address that moving forward. But gaining the maximum value for your hard-earned dollars is paramount. Carefully pre-planning your photoshoot with both your chef and photographer can really help stretch your budget in order to obtain the maximum number of images possible, so I advise you to always do this. It not only helps you get the most out of your restaurant photoshoot but it also helps your photographer understand your needs and have the confidence of delivering exactly what you expect.
I do hope that this provides some valuable pointers on approaches to implement during your next restaurant photoshoot, and if you would like to discuss restaurant photography further then feel free to reach out to us. True Images Photography provides professional beverage and food commercial photography that gets your business noticed. Feel free to book a free 30-minute consultation here.
Do look around the rest of the blog here for more helpful posts, and if you have any questions please reach out. I’m happy to advise. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn where I always answer messages with a detailed reply.