Masterclass #4

Shooting a restaurant menu on location

This week I wanted to talk you through some of the factors to consider when you’re shooting away from the controlled environment of a studio space. This is something that I do pretty regularly, and it always presents a different challenge to work in a “real” rather than controlled environment.

Generally it means working in the corner of an often dimly lit restaurant while regular customers carry on with their lunch just inches away, and I’ve got to be honest, can feel a bit like putting on a (fairly slow!) live show for the diners.

Customers will often watch you create the shot, and tend to ask one of two things

1. “Do you get to eat everything” (Really? This feels like every shoot would be a ¹Mr Creosote sketch scenario by the end …) or

2. “Can I eat that when you’re finished?” (Again confusing, I mean, you’ve just seen me poke and prod the food around for 20 minutes!)

Sometimes, like this week, it means setting up in an empty conference suite which you then have to give the “feel” of a restaurant in the shots. The challenge of this is something that the ex-theatre stagehand in me really loves - smoke and mirrors and slight of hand is in my DNA!

So I thought a bit of a behind-the-scenes masterclass into how I go about setting up the space, and then styling the food and the shot itself could be interesting to anyone who has ever tried to get a decent food photograph in these ²circumstances.