Recently I was brought onboard to help friends raise awareness with their exiting new adventure – the Doctor Syntax Hotel in Sandy Bay, Tasmania.
It’s a great space to photograph – although I haven’t really gone all out yet. Photographing around the general public needs permission and it’s really important that all photographers do their due diligence and ask permission and record appropriate acknowledgment.
Food photography is one of the great challenges for any hospitality industry. I did a lot of research on how “I” wanted to present their meals and then had a meeting with the owners to agree on the style.
I wanted a controlled environment. It’s too hard to photograph food in a working dining room, and there’s never enough room in a commercial kitchen. Also, I hate wasting food, so I didn’t want meals made just for the photographs – it’s bad for business as it’s throwing money down the drain. I think it’s disingenuous not to present genuine meals – there’s nothing wrong with capturing the real meals that are being served.
I started out by buying MDF panels and constructing an open ended box (mini studio) that I painted with blackboard paint (not reflective) and constructed with adhesive velcro tape so that it packed up into flat panels that I could transport easily. Both of the sides and the top, have a removable panel to either send light through or use as a hole to capture. It then became a case of grab a dish, place it in a dressed base (props) and capture. Food needs to be photographed really quickly as it wilts or even worse… cools! BTW, always wear gloves and a mask when possible, as food handling standards apply to everyone.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter if the images you create aren’t absolute winners on your own social media – your job is to make the best with what you have, and after your client’s graphic artists has done their job and it’s placed on their website & socials, it should look great – not award winning every time – but really good. As a professional photographer, your responsibility is to your client, not your social media…
Here are some sample shots (again, SAMPLES) of my food photography for the Doctor Syntax Hotel in Sandy Bay with differing graphic trials.
