A taste of the shoot. More photos are in the full gallery further down.
Eternity Cafe sits in the heart of the Sydney CBD, next to Town Hall, right beside the underground waterfall in the walkways around Town Hall Station. When the café brought in a new chef and a revised menu, they asked me for café food photography that would sell the new dishes and keep their social media busy for months.
The brief: a new menu, the same bright look
The new menu was there to lift sales and help the café keep growing its social media following. Their earlier food photos were bright, colourful and vibrant, and they really celebrated the food. The goal was to keep that look, so the new dishes would sit comfortably next to the old posts.
The brief was to photograph:- each new dish on its own, as a clean stock image
- each new dish on a set table
- each new dish being eaten or cut into
- their new environmentally friendly straws
- the special menu items
Photographing a Sydney CBD café while it traded
I photographed on location at the café. They set a table aside for me while they kept trading, and their staff brought each dish out as it was ready. Customers came in as normal and I worked around them. The whole shoot took a couple of hours, without getting in the way of the staff or the customers.
Tricky light beside the waterfall
The light was the hard part. Natural light comes in through a big gap in the ceiling, open to the outside where the waterfall is. Inside, the café is lit with LEDs. Those two kinds of light mix on every table, and they don't match. Food photos only work if the food looks like it does on the plate, so keeping a pink pancake pink and the greens fresh, from one table to the next, took care on every frame.
Why some photos look almost the same
Eternity Cafe wanted a range of angles and a photo library they could use on social media over three to six months. That's why some photos in the gallery look very similar. A berry bowl shot from a slightly different angle, or a little closer, gives you a fresh post a few weeks later without your followers seeing the same picture twice. It's a smart way to plan a content library: you shoot each dish several ways once, then post for months.
What I photographed
- Brunch dishes such as smashed avocado toast, poached eggs with feta, fritters with a fried egg, and porridge with poached fruit.
- Lunch plates, including lamb cutlets, a crumbed schnitzel with chips and slaw, roasted cauliflower, and peas with whipped cheese.
- Sweet dishes, from a pink pancake with berries to berry bowls and a flowerpot-style special.
- Smoothies with the new straws, lattes, and takeaway coffee with a bacon and egg roll.
- Full tables from overhead and side-on, and hands cutting into or holding the food, with the waterfall behind.
Eternity Cafe started using the photos straight away to promote the new menu.
Planning menu photography for social media: a 3 to 6 month library
If you want photos to last more than a few weeks of posting, plan the shoot around your feed, not just your menu. This is how I'd approach it:- List every dish and drink you want to promote, and mark the new ones and the specials.
- Shoot each dish more than one way: on its own, on a set table, and being eaten.
- Change the angle, overhead, side-on and close-up, so similar photos still feel new.
- Shoot landscape and portrait, so you have photos for the feed and for stories.
- Include what makes your café different. For Eternity Cafe, that was the waterfall.
- Have staff ready to bring dishes out in order, so the shoot fits around service.
- Map the photos to a rough posting calendar, so you know you have enough for each month.
For another menu shoot planned around a café's needs, see my Penny Lane food photography.
Café food photography in Sydney: what it costs
Business photography starts at $495 for up to an hour, with up to 10 edited photos and a commercial licence included. A bigger library, like this one, is quoted on request.
Shoot details
Client
Eternity Cafe
Industry
Café
Where
Beside the underground waterfall at Town Hall, Sydney CBD
Shoot
A couple of hours, on location while the café traded
Photographed
Every new dish, special menu items, drinks and the new eco-friendly straws
Used for
Promoting the new menu, and a social media photo library for 3 to 6 months
The full gallery
More photos from the Eternity Cafe shoot, including the similar angles planned for months of social media posts. Click any photo to see it large.
Need a photo library for your café?
I can photograph your new menu, your drinks and your venue in one session, planned so you have months of social media posts. Business photography starts at $495, and bigger libraries are quoted on request.
