4 No-Nos to Restaurant Food Photography
At some point in a restaurant owner or manager day to day running of the business, they know it’s inevitable for their restaurant to have to eventually take photos for their menu. In fact it is imperative that restaurant owners take having professioanl photos be a top priority due to its likelihood of increasing customer attention. According to Grubhub data research, a customer is more likely to be interested in a restaurants food based on photos that match the description being written about the food in which they may be ordering. Many people take it upon themselves to take photos due to reasons such as not being able to afford to hire a professional food photographer or just wanting to do it themselves. So with that being said here is a few NO NO’s that you should take into consideration if you are going to take your own photos for your menu.
1. Using Poor Lighting (Aka Restuarant Lighting
- Part of the appeal of good food is the lighting that is used to bring images to life as stated in this article by Team Skylum. We've all been on food apps such as Yelp, Open Table and Zomato, looking for restaurants to either dine in or take out and seeing horrible photos. Most people take their phones out and snap pictures that they think look good but actually are doing the food that they are eating a full-on disservice.
As a restaurant owner, it is important to get an idea of how to properly portray your food to look as appetizing as possible to be able to attract the maximum amount of clients you possibly can to your restaurant. Whether you have a social media manager who is in charge of photography or you have the budget to hire a professional photographer to photograph your dishes, understanding how to utilize light is extremely important.
Your best bet, if you’re doing it yourself, is to bring your food as close to a window as possible to get the maximum amount of lighting you can to bring your dish to life. A great photographer knows how to utilize natural light in the maximum way possible to get the best portrayal out of your dishes that you can/
2. Using Containers or Paper Plates instead of Attractive Platting
- I’ve worked with plenty of restaurants and the chefs and owners usually will tell me "No no we do not want to use plates because we feel like we'll be deceiving the customers by showing the foods on plates if it doesn’t come like that" Eh, this situation is up for debate, but from experience people love to see the food presented the best way possible. Yes, you may have the few naggers and intricate detailed individuals who will sit here and be like "Wait the picture was on a plate why am I not getting a plate". That’s not going to be the majority of individuals, I promise.
Your best bet as a restaurant owner who is getting photos taken, is to find proper plating and cups that best displays the contents of your dishes. If you want to make your customers hungry correctly, well go with what'll grab their attention. If you insist on not using expensive plates and other dishes try to use containers that'll aid to the look of the dishes and not take away from it.
3. Not Properly Plating Your Food
- Now, not everyone went to the most expensive and elite culinary art schools to learn how to properly plate their dishes like a Michelin star chef, but for goodness sake, please don’t just throw food on the plate like pig slop. I've had restaurants swear up and down that it doesn’t really matter how the food looked long as it looked like what they were selling, and the number of times I had to tell them NO, that won’t work would make your head hurt.
By properly plating your food you at least give the illusion of an amazing dish, and if your customer sees it and says mm, this is making me hungry. then the job is complete.
For example, if time is not a factor, take your time by layering dishes such as salad piece by piece so that everything can look cleanly placed together and not thrown all over the place.
4. Placing Unnecessary Items in the Frame
- There are so many magazines, blogs, social media posts, tumblr posts, Reels, Tik Toks, filled with, what feels like over stimulated photos of food, with lots of items around it to attenuate the idea of the dish, The question we must ask is, IS IT NECESSARY. Its a two sides sword in this regard. Yes it can be necessary and other times the photo does not call for all the extra razzle dazzle.
The goal of restaurant photography, whether for menu or social media, is to portray the dish you are trying to sell to the client in the best light, and SOMETIMES, that means simplicity. There is definitely a time a place for utilizing ingredients and other dishes and cups to be able to add extra jazz to the beauty of the dish you are portraying, and other times its best to just be able to get a food shot of your beef tartare or a few french baguettes piled on top of each other to get the point across.