YRSFood,
Ashbourne Restaurant & Menu Photographer.

A lot of menu photography is simply zoomed in shots of the plate contents. Fine if the dish being photographed is intricate but if your dish is chilli, the self levelling puddle in the middle of the plate just doesn't look good. So it's the angle of the plate that is of interest and if necessary pulling back and showing a little of the tableware may be a better option - so it's not just the plate when it comes to menu photography.

Then there is the issue of studio lighting for the restaurant image or would you prefer natural light... It's safe to say that food photography is not just about taking a photograph of the plate and this is often the mistake so many chefs make when they take images of their dishes themselves using the cook lamp in the kitchen and their phone - it really doesn't do their exception skill any justice at all. Lighting... what else?

The plate needs dressing, the image styling and above all a little composition. Yes a vertical plate shot may work but only with perfect lighting - so on most occasions a more creative approach is needed and we find the best approach is a combination of two experts - the chef and the food photographer!

This area of restaurant photography is very quickly moving to Facebook captured images - and it should do, as hiring a photographer all the while is impossible! People enjoying your establishment should be captured real-time and with real people. The only problem is that some of the images may be of poor quality due to lighting or the consumption of a few drinks!

That's why some of our clients bring us a long for the less busy times - lunch times perhaps not evenings - to engage with your customers and gently document the atmosphere.

A lot of the times, however, we suggest bringing in models to act the process. Why?

Model release forms (and now GDPR), to put a finer point on it. To get a close up image and not a crowd image that is professionally taken, requires a signed model release form, which gives you as the establishment owner their permission to use the image. So to get around that most clients use their staff, friends and even family to create a table level atmosphere which we photo-shoot. YRSFood, Restaurant Food Photographer Ashbourne.

Normally we advise a chat with chef if we can - nothing lengthy a quick telephone chat is normally all it takes and a shoot list from you in advance of the call - so we can understand what it is we're shooting and the implications of this - will it melt very quickly and loose form? How does the sauce change over 20 minutes shoot time? Will anything wilt or spoil over the shoot time? Do we need to bring things to style around the dish etc? Tthen comes the logistics beyond prop use and torage (have we car access even), we need to work in about 3m square of space as the gear can get a little cumbersome. Some lighting may be used even if natural lighting is the main source - as a balance in sometimes dark eating environments of the restaurant. then there is space for the IT - yes you see the image before we take it on PC as everything is tethered.