The most expensive thing in commercial food photography is a reshoot. A reshoot happens when the brief was unclear, when the props were wrong, when the food was not ready at the right time, or when the client and photographer had different images in their heads and did not compare notes before the day. Most reshoots are preventable. The tool that prevents them is a written brief, agreed before the shoot date is confirmed.
Start with the end use ¶
Before deciding on style, background, or props, establish where the images will be used. A print menu requires different proportions and resolution from an Instagram post. A website hero image needs to work at 1920 pixels wide. A food delivery app thumbnail needs to read at 200 pixels. These are not the same image, and trying to produce one image that works for all of them usually produces an image that works well for none. List every intended use case in the brief, with the required dimensions and resolution for each.
Shot list: the most important document ¶
A shot list is a numbered list of every image required, with a brief description of each: the dish, the angle (overhead, 45 degrees, straight-on), the background, the props, and any specific elements that must be visible. A shot list for a 20-dish menu might run to 40 images. Some dishes need an overhead and a 45-degree shot. The shot list is the document that determines how long the shoot day needs to be. Without it, the day runs long, the food gets cold, and the photographer is guessing.
Props and surfaces: source them in advance ¶
The background surface and the props. Plates, cutlery, napkins, glasses. Have a larger effect on the final image than most clients expect. A dish that looks ordinary on a white plate on a white surface looks completely different on a dark ceramic plate on a slate surface. We ask clients to source three background options and bring them to the shoot. We also ask them to bring the actual tableware the restaurant uses, not a substitute. Substitutes look like substitutes. If the restaurant's tableware is not photogenic, that is a conversation to have before the shoot, not during it.
Food preparation timing ¶
Food looks best in the first two to three minutes after it is plated. After that, sauces spread, garnishes wilt, and steam stops. This means the kitchen and the photographer need to be synchronised. We agree a shot order before the day and communicate it to the kitchen so each dish is plated at the moment we are ready to shoot it, not ten minutes before. For the Kamakura restaurant shoot in March 2026, we ran a fifteen-minute timing rehearsal on the morning of day one before any food was prepared. It added time at the start and saved time throughout the day.
What to agree in writing before the shoot ¶
The brief should confirm: the shot list with quantities and intended use, the licensing scope (web only, print, advertising, duration), the delivery format and timeline, the retouching scope, and what happens if a reshoot is required. The licensing scope is the item most often left vague and the one that causes the most disputes later. Web-only licensing and full advertising licensing are priced differently. Agree it in writing before the invoice is raised.
Smart Peninsula has been shooting commercial food and product photography since 2017. If you are planning a menu shoot or a product campaign, contact us at hello@smartpeninsula.com with your shot list or a description of the project and we will reply with a preliminary quote.