A taste of the shoots. More photos are in the full gallery further down the page. Click any photo to see it large.
Foodcraft Espresso and Bakery hired me to photograph their food. They needed cafe food photography for their menu, for Uber Eats and other food delivery apps, for their website and for social media. The focus was purely the food: no staff at work, no models, just the dishes and drinks people order.
They had me in for three different sessions. The photos on this page are a sample of that work.
The brief: food photos for a menu, delivery apps and Instagram
A cafe menu has to work in a lot of places at once. The same burger might appear on a printed menu, as a small tile in a delivery app, on the website and in an Instagram post. Each of those needs something slightly different from the photo.
So the brief was simple to say and broad to deliver: photograph the dishes clearly and appetisingly, with enough variety that the cafe had the right photo for each place it would be used.
Photographing a cafe while it stays open
Foodcraft didn't close for the shoots. I worked in the cafe during opening hours, around the staff and the customers.
Nothing was brought in to stage the photos. I only used what you can see in them: the cafe's own timber tables, the brick wall, their plates and jar mugs, and their red and white check paper. That matters for delivery apps and menus. When a customer's order arrives, it should look like the photo they chose it from.
What I photographed
- Salads and lighter dishes, like a roast pumpkin and feta salad, and zucchini noodles.
- Burgers with chips and aioli.
- A steak wrap with chips, in a takeaway box.
- The big breakfast with poached eggs.
- Filled doughnuts from the bakery side of the business.
- Sweet dishes, including waffles and a chocolate brioche with ice cream.
- Fresh juices, smoothies and shakes.
The wrap in its takeaway box and the zucchini noodles on a plate show two sides of the same menu: food to take away or have delivered, and food to sit down with.
One dish, three angles: getting more from every plate
For most dishes I didn't take just one photo. I shot the same plate from different angles, because each angle suits a different job.
- Top-down: flat, graphic and easy to read at a small size. It suits menu tiles and delivery app listings, and dishes that are mostly about what's on top, like the three doughnuts in the gallery below.
- About 45 degrees: the angle you see a plate from when you sit down to eat. It shows the food and some of the table around it, so it works well on a website.
- Table level: gets you close to the height of the food, so the layers show. It's the angle for a tall burger, and it makes a strong Instagram post.
The burger is a good example. The wide shot near the top of the page is at table level, with the drink and chips behind. The two below are the same burger again: a tight close-up of the layers, and a higher angle that shows the whole tray.
There's another reason to do this. A cafe posts on social media every week, and the menu changes slowly. With several angles of each dish, you can keep your content fresh without using the same photo all the time. One plate on one day gives you photos for weeks.
A shot list for cafe and food delivery photos
If you run a cafe, this is where I'd start:
- Your best sellers first, since they're the dishes people search for in delivery apps.
- Each dish from at least two angles, so you have a square-friendly top-down and a more natural side view.
- Takeaway packaging, if most of your delivery orders arrive in it.
- Drinks on their own and next to food, for combos and specials.
- Your own tables, walls and tableware, so the photos look like your place and nowhere else.
Shoot in both landscape and portrait where you can. Delivery apps, websites and Instagram crop photos differently, and having both saves you from cutting off half a dish later.
Cafe and food photography in Sydney
Business photography starts at $495 for up to an hour, with up to 10 edited photos and a commercial licence included. See business photography in Sydney for what's included.
Shoot details
Client
Foodcraft Espresso and Bakery
Industry
Cafe and bakery
Photographed
Food and drinks, across three sessions in the open cafe
Used for
Menu, Uber Eats and other delivery apps, website and social media
The full gallery
More photos from the Foodcraft Espresso and Bakery shoots. Click any photo to see it large.
Need photos of your menu?
I can photograph your dishes in your cafe while you stay open, ready for your menu, Uber Eats and other delivery apps, and Instagram. Business photography starts at $495 for up to an hour, with up to 10 edited photos.
