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Johnny’s Harborside Restaurant (Food Photography) @ Santa Cruz

Ah, lovely food photography. Everyone seems to think it’s the toughest thing to shoot – but those people clearly haven’t tried photographing small children at the beach who want to look at anything but the camera. Food is so well behaved, I just want to eat it up. And I do. Regularly. Just another side benefit to this type of commercial work. I specialize on bringing all my lighting and photography gear on-location, that is, to the restaurant. I’m really good at finding great places to shoot that don’t interfere with customers, and working directly with executive chefs to help ensure their plated dishes look as great as they taste. Lighting, lens focal lengths & apertures, and angle/distance to subject are all critical factors that can make or break a food photo. I’ve done it so much over the years that those decisions are mostly unconscious at this point, but it’s amazing how physically moving a plate 3 inches and changing the angle you shoot from by a few degrees can drastically impact the wow-factor for your photo. I shoot from a variety of perspectives and distances for each dish, knowing that the company’s website and marketing designers will want options for everything, depending on how the photos are to be used. It’s easy to think as a photographic print as the end-use for an image, but these days (and especially for commercial purposes), flexibility in your image portfolio is waaayyy more important. So I think as an art director, a creative director, a web designer, a chef, and of course – as a potential customer, seeing these photos in a newspaper ad, on a yelp profile, on an official restaurant website. And the results (I hope) speak for themselves.

The photos below are selected shots from a shoot this morning at Johnny’s Harborside Restaurant in Santa Cruz, California. It’s a fabulous restaurant, and if you’re in the area I encourage you to drop in for a bite (or a drink). Enjoy, and feel free to comment below.

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Looking for an on-location food photographer in the Bay Area?
San Francisco / Bay Area Commercial Food Photographer Chris Schmauch makes food look really yummy!
Call (831) 216-6210 for serious inquiries only.

If you haven’t already, feel free to review our portfolio site, browse past food & restaurant sessions, follow our business on Facebook (like us while you’re at it!), or read our awesome Yelp reviews.