Food & Drink

From fine dining to fast food, photographed

A tasting menu in a dark dining room and a plate of fried chicken on a checked cloth need very different photographs, and both have to make someone hungry. My work runs that whole range: fine dining and hotel restaurants, bars, casual and fast-food brands, packaged products. The look changes with the brand. The job stays the same: food that looks the way it tastes.

Restaurants and Hotels

In a restaurant, the room is part of the dish. I shoot on location, usually before service, with the kitchen running and the chef plating each dish as it would leave the pass. The light is set to suit the space: low and directional for a dark dining room, brighter and softer for a terrace lunch or an afternoon tea. Around the plates come the moments that make the place: the grill catching, fish ageing in the cabinet, a bartender mid-pour, guests at the table. A new opening or a new menu goes out looking as considered as it is.

Brands & products

For a brand, the brief is louder. A burger, a range of sauces or a bar of chocolate has to be recognised in a second, whether it’s on a menu or in an advertising campaign, so the studio work is graphic and colour-led: bold seamless backdrops, hard light, hands reaching into frame, products repeated into patterns. Whether it’s a single hero shot or a full campaign, every image is made to sit with the brand’s own colours and type.

Drinks

With drinks, everything comes down to light: through the liquid, off the ice, along the rim. A cocktail list for a bar, a seasonal coffee line, a whisky or gin for a spirits brand, each one skilfully lit so that the colour comes through and the drink glows. Some are shot on a dark set or a mirrored surface where only the glass reads. Others go back into the bar with the people who make them: a bartender building a drink, a guest lifting a glass.

Motion

I also shoot short loops and stop-motion for social: a chocolate bar unwrapping itself, a stack building piece by piece, a dish coming together on the plate. They’re shot on the same set as the stills, under the same light, so a campaign holds together whether it’s a photograph on the menu or a loop in someone’s feed.

Styling and production come with the shoot. My studio sources the props, books the crew and runs the day, so there’s one team from the first call to the final files. Tell me what you’re opening, launching or changing on the menu, and I’ll tell you how I’d shoot it.

Selected clients: Starbucks Reserve · Tatel Malta · Corinthia · Hard Rock Hotel