I don’t understand why food & product photos are so expensive….
Getting the photos business owners need is more than just snapping a photo. There are many parts and players go into getting the best photos possible to get the intended message across to potential customer. We will discuss the various costs and roles that are critical to a proper commercial food photography photo session.
Photographer
An experienced commercial food photographer is an important player in the photo session. Not all photographers have the needed skills needed to properly take quality images for food and product photography. An event or portrait photographer has a separate set of skills specific to capturing those styles of photos. Let’s look at it like this, A Dentist and a Surgeon are both forms of doctors but they work in completely different areas of medicine, you wouldn’t want a dentist preforming open heart surgery would you?
Using proper light to best show off the product and to get the style of finished images is a large part of the process which not everyone has the experience or understanding on how to execute.
Another area having the right photographer is important is they have the correct equipment for this style of session which reduces costs for the project as they usually don’t require renting various equipment. Equipment that is needed on most food shoots includes proper lenses, lighting, lighting modifiers to name a few.
Food Stylist
Ever wonder how food ads have the perfect amount of seed on the bread, beautiful sauces and condiments and just the right number of the various ingredients to make it look it’s best? This is because a food stylist has spent countless hours shopping, selecting and placing every part of the dish to make the food look wow worthy.
A food stylist is a team member that has extensive knowledge on how to make food look it’s best and “camera ready” through experience as well as skills and tricks to make the ingredients really pop in the photo. Food stylist spends hours selecting the absolutely best of each ingredient to build the dish as it should look to build the “hero” or the key focus of the image. See some of my styling work here.
Food styling is an art form in itself and is important if you want to draw customers in and make their mouth water before they even visit. To learn even more about food styling check out this post explaining what a food stylist is
Set Designer
A set designer is responsible for creating the mood, setting and look of the overall image. They chose everything from plates, glasses and linen to the shadows falling on the set to help tell the story. Today’s cameras capture such details that using worn items will cause the images to show flaws that draw the customers eye away from the hero of the image.
These items are normally included in the budget for most photo sessions and add to the cost of the shoot.
It really takes a team to give you the images that increases customer visits and ultimately more profit for your restaurant. Without one of these rolls on set you will not get the photo that you are looking for and this will cause your marketing to not drive business as well as it should. Having various roles, equipment, props, and sets are some of the reasons why the cost of marketing photos can be expensive but not as expensive as having to reshoot because you are missing any of these necessary things.
Instead of spending money on sub-par images which will end up having to ether redo the photos at an increased cost or have your efforts fall short, you should hire a team with expertise in these areas and get it right the first time. When you choose to work with me I use my varied background in photography and culinary arts to help reduce the need for having to hire many of these roles.
To discuss how I can help your Houston TX based business and can help you handle these roles and ensure your hard earned marketing dollars aren’t wasted,please reach out and fill out our quick contact form.
