Restaurant food photography is one of the most overlooked aspects of restaurant marketing. It’s often seen as a secondary concern to getting eyes on other, more targeted content, but the simple truth is that it’s crucial to bringing in new customers. Giving guests a visual preview of what they can expect is an easy way to show off whatever awesome food you create.
So, let’s talk about food photography for restaurants — how to do it well, how to use it effectively, and why you should probably be using it more than you are.
What is Restaurant Food Photography?
First things first, as always, we have to define what we’re talking about. Restaurant food photography is (as its name might imply) the product taking photos of your food. While just about anyone can do this, assuming they have a phone, there are ways to differentiate yourself from the crowd — more on that below.
Its biggest benefit will almost always be for marketing. Whether that means social media, local ads and signage, or an email campaign, showing guests what they’re in for is a fantastic way to entice new customers.
Benefits of Investing in Food Photography for Restaurants
There are a lot of reasons for you to invest in restaurant food photography, but ultimately, the basic reality is that people eat with their eyes just as much as they do their mouths.
In other words, food photography for restaurants is crucial for the same reason that effective plating is — guests are more excited by visually exciting food. So, how do we make good use of restaurant food photography?
25 Restaurant Food Photography Tips
Finally, it’s time to talk about practical tips. There are so many small things that you can do to drastically up your food photography game for restaurants, restaurant marketing, and even for your own personal portfolio.
For those of you who are a bit more experienced with photography, feel free to skim the first few sections; they’re there to help out those who don’t know much about how to properly set up for a quality photo.
Use Natural Light
This is something that’s so often overlooked by amateur photographers no matter their subject matter, and it really deserves more attention.
When plotting out an image, one should keep a few things in mind:
- The picture’s lighting
- The framing of the shot (what you see in the picture)
- The composition of your photo (what your eyes are drawn to in the shot)
We’ll touch on the latter two points later, but for now, let’s focus on lighting. Natural light tends to be softer and generally look more appealing than unnatural (fluorescent) lighting. Considering that we’re trying to make your food look appealing, it’s generally best to use (indirect) sunlight to highlight your food at its best.
Avoid Direct Sunlight
On that note, there are two types of lighting in images: direct and indirect. The former is great for trying to illuminate something (like a searchlight), whereas the latter is perfect for highlighting something. Since we don’t really want to light your food up like a Christmas tree, it’s best to aim for indirect lighting.
You can do this with natural light by getting out of direct sunlight — though not into shade — and using the ambient lighting of your scene to brighten your image. The “golden hour” is a period of time that is commonly used in photography and film that’s in the time directly before or after either a sunset or sunrise. This is because the sun is still out, but it’s not shining directly onto your subject matter, allowing indirect natural lighting.
Use Reflectors
This ties into our discussion on lighting — reflectors are a great way to create a tailor-made lighting setup for a photoshoot without needing to invest in ring lights and other heavier-duty forms of lighting.
Invest in a Good Camera
While it can be hard to justify this up-front cost for many restaurants, buying a high-quality camera will make much more of a difference to the final quality than many of the other tips here. In a pinch, some smart phones have great cameras, but the freedom and control that you get with a good camera is simply too much to pass up.
Use a Tripod
While this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, using a tripod for restaurant food photography is generally a good practice. It allows you a bit more wiggle room to reposition and find the right angle without having to fight shaky hands or the inability for your camera to focus. And, additionally, it allows you a really good way to take multiple versions of the same image, which is actually our next point.
Take Multiple Photos
In restaurant food photography, it’s standard practice to take consecutive photos each time that you reframe an image. In other words, rather than taking one shot and calling it good, take five, or even a dozen. This accomplishes a few things:
- Multiple shots mean that you can easily pick through to find the ones where sunlight hits the steam just right or when the sauce pools perfectly. In other words, it gives you multiple chances.
- Consecutive shots, when done well, can tell a story better than words. Use that to your advantage.
- Repeated shots give you a chance to recover if something happens in-frame. Whether a bug gets into the shot, someone walks past, or you simply sneeze, give yourself a bit of grace by taking multiple photos and sorting through them after the fact.
Experiment with Angles
On a similar note, experimenting with angles rather than picking one and only using that allows you a bit more freedom to see what works and what doesn’t. The way that you frame a shot and the angle from which you shoot can heavily impact what the viewer sees in a photo. You can re-shoot the same plate a dozen times from a dozen angles, and each new perspective will show something new.
This isn’t to say that you should go crazy with it, but take a few shots from varied angles when doing restaurant food photography — you might be surprised by what you find.
Focus on Composition
I mentioned composition earlier, and we’re going to come back to that for a moment. In restaurant food photography, composition is the difference between seeing a plate and getting hungry or continuing to scroll. We want potential new customers to see your food and be struck by the photo enough to stop and look — and composition plays a massive part in that.
When shooting, be sure to keep your background in mind; don’t just snap a picture of the food on your expo pass, bring it to a table and photograph it from a perspective the prospective customers would have! While capturing your chefs plating in the back can be a great artistic move, it doesn’t always help highlight your food… which is kind of the whole point here.
Keep It Simple
Just as with cooking, restaurant food photography shines best when kept simple. Don’t over-crowd shots or try to create the “perfect dish,” just do what you do best and capture it at its tastiest.
Use Props Wisely
A good overall rule of thumb with food photography for restaurants is to try to focus on your food. If you need to throw a bunch of extras into the shot (especially if it’s not something that your guest would actually get), then you’re missing the point. Focus on your food and the ambiance of your restaurant.
While you certainly can use props effectively, there’s a difference between, say, a carving knife in-frame versus random herbs and fruit. A common complaint with stock food photography for restaurants is that they overcrowd their images with random additions — why do you have an orange, banana, and mint sprig on the table next to the pizza? In other words, ask yourself if what you’re adding to the image communicates anything important to the viewer; if not, cut it.
Play with Colors
Just as with plating, color in restaurant food photography is super important. I mentioned earlier that people eat with their eyes, and it’s really true. It’s the same reason that we add smoked paprika or finely chopped parsley to a dish — it brings a bit of extra “pop” to what the guest sees.
You can do the same with your image’s setting. Use colored tablecloths or napkins, polished silverware, and natural lighting to highlight the depth of your plate — I promise, it helps.
Capture Texture
Once again, we’re back to the concept of people eating with their eyes. Texture is (arguably) the most important part of a great meal after taste, and it’s something that can be captured by camera with a bit of care. Crunchy things should be shot directly out of the oven or fryer, sauces should be plated and shot before they can break or pool on the plate, and fruit and veg should have ample light on it to highlight its freshness.
Work Quickly
As I mentioned above, it’s important to work quickly when capturing food photography for restaurants. You don’t have time to fumble around, waiting for the perfect image. It’s the same as running food from an expo — the longer it sits, the less it reflects the intended quality of the dish. You want to capture the image before your fried chicken gets soggy, before the burger’s bun is soaked, and before the sauce breaks because it’s been reheated for another shot.
This isn’t to say that you should work carelessly, though — just make a schedule and keep to it.
Edit Thoughtfully
We’ve all seen heavily edited images of food photography for restaurants, they’re everywhere, but that doesn’t mean that you should also be doing it. Just because McDonald’s can afford to heavily edit a burger image doesn’t mean that you can (or even should). Use editing to highlight small details, rather than to over-embellish food that we already know is good. Let it speak for itself.
Experiment with Depth of Field
Depth of field is a complicated topic that we unfortunately don’t have the time to break down in depth (see what I did there), but it’s one that’s incredibly handy once you know how to use it. In short, depth of field affects how close or far your subject appears. I highly recommend this guide from Adobe on how to use a shallow depth of field, as it helps break down both the how and the why of using depth of field effectively.
Show the Process
The term in photography for this is called an “action shot.” It’s an image of something happening, rather than an image of something. In the case of restaurant food photography, this generally means the process of cooking. Whether it’s the flames beneath your wok, the painstaking prep process, or the final moments of plating, showing how the food came to life is a great way to build engagement with an image.
Include Human Elements
On that same note, people like to see other people doing things. This means that highlighting your chefs can be a wonderful way to build a bit of human connection between your business and your guest — but there’s an important caveat here. Only take photos of people who want to be photographed. In other words, ask first!
Use a Food Stylist
If it’s in the budget, hiring a food stylist is a great way to effectively capture the essence of your food with photography. While it will cost you money, it can also save a tremendous amount of time spent on trial and error when plating, shooting, and replating.
Keep Plates Clean
This is likely a no-brainer to anyone who’s worked in a restaurant, but ensure that your plate is clean! To clarify, this is meant both figuratively and literally; obviously, use a clean plate and give it a wipe before photographing. More importantly, though, don’t over-crowd the plate with unnecessary garnishes or flourishes. If you do, you risk distracting from what should be the main show, your food!
Highlight Key Ingredients
Just as it’s important to not include random extra bits of food (like citrus or an herb sprig “for color”), it’s also important that you highlight the most important parts of your dish. If it’s a steak dish, we should be able to see the steak front and center; likewise, burgers and sandwiches should display each ingredient that’s on them.
Capture the Steam
When possible, use proper lighting and freshly-plated (i.e., still hot) food to capture the steam. I don’t know what it is about it, but there is an incredibly satisfying aspect to seeing food that’s so hot that it steams, and it makes for a great flourish to well-composed photos.
Use a Low ISO
ISO is a term used in food photography for restaurants (and photography in general, for that matter) that refers to how much light is allowed into the camera for the photo. The more you use, the brighter the image. Read this guide for a killer breakdown on how and why to use ISO.
Get Close Up
This may seem obvious, but get close to your food. A good general rule of thumb is that you should be photographing from no farther than a guest that would be eating the food from the dish.
Show Portion Sizes
We’re trying to represent your food accurately and well to guests, right? So make sure to accurately show how much (or how little) they would actually get.
Once you’ve captured the perfect images, it’s time to use your restaurant food photography for good. Highlight specials and new menu items on social media, share cool plates when possible, highlight great dishes via email outreach, and please — use these shiny new images in your restaurant for signage and menus.
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