5 Ways Food Photographers and Restaurants Work Together

Food photographers and restaurant owners work together to create magically delicious photos.

What do food photographers and restaurant owners have in common? 

Food, honey. 

Restaurant owners (that’s you) want images that align with their brand, values, and vibe. And a food photographer’s (that’s me) job is to gather that vision and create images that are hotter than a honeymoon hotel. 

So how do we come together to bring your vision into reality? 

Here are 5 ways food photographers and restaurant owners can work together to create some gorge photos!

Write down a list of adjectives that you want your customers to feel when they look at pictures of your food. 

Food is tied to our memories, and memories are tied to our emotions. Therefore, food = emotion. I ain’t whistling dixie y’all. This is the gospel truth! With this list in hand, I create a plan on how to capture and evoke those emotions.

Look for inspiration outside of food photos.

It’s okay to look at pictures of food, but I wouldn’t rely entirely on that approach. You want images that make you stand out from the crowd, and you start doing that by looking at different sources. Then my team and I piece these sources together like a patchwork quilt to create bomb photos!

Take a look at your menu and decide which dishes to photograph. 

We all want to photograph our entire menu, baby. No dish left behind, right? That’sThat’s all fine, fun, and dandy for large overhead tabletop shots, but for individual close-up shots, you need a Diana Ross. In consultations, I ask restaurant owners which dishes are the Diana Ross’sRoss’s of your menu? From there, we discuss which recipes to photograph. 

Bring the chef in the conversation.

Who better to consult than the very person who cooks all of the bomb food?! This is especially important when the chef is making and styling the food to be photographed. 

Trust the process and your photographer.

At the end of the day, Austin Food Guide exists to serve. We want to create images that make a statement but represent your business faithfully. 

Here at Austin Food Guide, we believe in honesty, breaking the norm, and having fun while doing it. Open communication is vital for a successful collaboration. I tell my clients OVERWHELM me with information. We’re here to serve you. 

If you’re interested in overwhelming us with information, let’s chat.