Restaurant & food photography

The session happens before opening or on the day the restaurant closes, which in many Brazilian kitchens is Monday. That is the only way the kitchen can plate one dish at a time for the camera and the photographer can move a table to the window, where most food is photographed. The dish list and plating order are agreed with the chef in advance so everything arrives fresh: salads, foams, ice cream and anything that wilts go first; moqueca, feijoada, picanha and rice dishes, which hold their heat and shine, come later. Signature dishes get more than one angle, and the rest of the time covers drinks, hands at work on the line, the team and the room.

Thirty finished photographs sounds small next to a full menu, and that is deliberate. A restaurant usually needs strong pictures of the eight to twelve dishes that sell, not a catalogue of every plate, and a 3-hour session spent on fewer dishes produces images that hold up on a printed menu, a delivery-app thumbnail and a phone screen alike. Files come in square, portrait and landscape crops; iFood and the other delivery apps each publish their own image rules, so check them before the day.

The chef plates as for a guest, and the photographer adjusts angle, garnish and light at the table. A separate food stylist is worth adding for packaged products, cookbooks and advertising campaigns, and is quoted on its own. For a pousada or hotel with several outlets, pousada and hotel photography covers the whole property; for short vertical video of the kitchen and the bar, the social content service adds clips.