“The Untouchables”, “Air Jordan”, “The Rush Street”, “The Sears Tower” are all names of pizzas at Pizza Chicago. Restaurant locations are in Palo Alto, San Jose and Santa Clara. These pizzas have a few thing in common. Beyond fresh ingredients, their meat (sausage, for example) are the size of small apricots, tender and delicious. The pizza served here are deep dish. The dough rises to a beautiful golden brown.

They serve 16 variety of pizzas. We photographed only 11 of their pizzas and 7 other dishes, total of 18, all in under 2 full days. For a normal shoot, this may take all the way up to 3 days. Most restaurant owners are astounded by how long food photography and styling takes until they experience the process. In extreme cases such as the BigMac^TM by McDonald’s, would take one full day to photograph that single image.

Why does it take hours or days to photograph food? Isn’t it just clicking the shutter? Some reasons aren’t just the photography itself but a team, working together to create the perfect images to represent your company, as much as a perfect logo to showcase what you believe in.

1. Composition of the photograph. Knowing where the image will end up, allow us to compose the shots to the final composition. If you look at this shot, the area where they want the photo is extremely horizontal. Where most photos are 4×6″, this is a 4×14″ !!! Without compositing for this shot, the image will not fit at all in the space allocated. A close working relationship with the graphic designer is necessary.
   
   Notice how we leave space on the right for the bottom of a coke glass and allow the “Order Online” promotion to seep into the image without disrupting the image of the pizza. Pizza Chicago’s new website (like what you see in the image below) should be online soon.

(Click image to Enlarge)


2. Marketing direction determines the lighting, props and the environment on how the product should be photographed under. We used the pans used by the restaurant, creating a rustic and homey look, and we photographed the pizzas on the same table that their customers will see in the restaurant instead of a white background or a beautiful wood table, like what we did for Sam’s BarBeQue in San Jose.
   
   Since these are deep-dish pizzas, we have to showcase how thick the pans and hence, how thick the pizzas are. Only by going lower on the shot can we achieve that.
3. Photographed food sells better. Go to a restaurant and open up a restaurant menu. Nine times out of ten, you’ll point to a photo (if there is one) of a dish that looks delicious and say, “I want that”.
   Understanding this point allows the owner to either select the dishes that they want to sell more or the food item that are more colorful and attractive.



4. Lighting. The make-it or break-it to a food photograph. Mediocre lighting technique makes the food photos look like it was photograph for facebook and yelp. It makes the food and restaurant look cheap and that they can’t afford a food photographer. Check out the salad below, the greens, rings of onions and tomatoes screams freshness and glows in the light. There is a definite wow factor that makes you want to eat the menu photos! Setting up each shot and moving lights around for the next shot can take some time to gobo, flag, reflect, etc.
5. Food Stylist Since we’ve worked closely with numerous food stylists, we have a great idea of how to coordinate the dishes coming out of the kitchen, styling, photographing, review process. Everything becomes smooth and the owner learns a great deal on how to present their food after the shoot. In this case, Juan of Pizza Chicago decided he now wants all their Cookieza (A buttery chocolate chip cookie baked when ordered, topped with a Haagen-Daz vanilla ice-cream & drizzled with caramel sauce) to now come with a cute mint behind the ice-cream.
   
   Depending on how crucial the image is, we can spend hours arranging each sesame on a bun to ensure the perfect look to the image. Understanding composition and art appreciation goes a long way here. Beyond the rules on “hero” food item, separation, etc., there are many other things that comes into play, such as market trends, colors, etc.



6. Review and approval of images – With new technology, we can now wirelessly photograph the food and then immediately upon clicking the shutter, see the photographs. However, this also means that the lighting for the photographs need to be spectacular that they come out fantastic, straight out of the camera. These images in this blog are nearly all straight out of camera, what the owner saw during the shoot itself. Without this process, it’s going to be a shoot in the dark. Why would you pay someone money to photograph your food when you don’t even know if the image will turn out well.

Investment in time and money on better food photographs yields a high ROI (Return On Investment). Images that you get from a food photographer will pay itself back, years and years after the initial investment. These images ends up on the menu, website, reviews sites, brochures, banners, tradeshow booths, coupons, etc.

Staying ahead of the curve with marketing and smart investments will allow a restaurant or a food company to be extremely successful.