A taste of food photography success with a rising global brand.

**WARNING** this blog contains mouth-watering imagery, please don’t read before lunch!

My new client, Mr Yum, knows the power of stunning visuals when it comes to food. In fact, their powerful ordering, payments and marketing platform for hospitality has already taken Australia and the UK by storm. Their mission is simple: become the Shopify for venues, focusing on alleviating the problems hospitality is currently facing whilst elevating the customer experience. With every exciting mission, they need the right team and that’s why they’ve brought the Simply C food photography solution on board to help.

For this particular job, I would be visiting swish Ipswich cocktail and dining spot Aurora. Right off the bat, I was impressed with how much freedom Mr Yum gave me. They were happy to put their trust in my experience and expertise to get the images Aurora needed to step up to the next level.

Mr Yum’s focus on top-quality food photography has been a crucial ingredient to their incredible global success. They understand that without the sensory elements of the restaurant experience: the sights, the sounds, the smells, and of course the tastes, it’s always imagery that will get customers clicking the ‘order now’ button on their smartphones.

A recipe for success.

During my initial recce to Aurora, I spoke with the owner and head chef to establish their needs. Of course, creating a list of the various drinks and dishes, from Sunday roasts to snack platters, and coffees to cocktails, was just the start. In my experience, restaurant photography usually involves an element of compromise and collaboration. After all, kitchens tend to be busy seven days a week, and shooting space is often tight, as paying customers need somewhere to sit.

As a pro, I know how to adapt to work around a client’s needs. In this case, we arranged for two tables to be set up, which would give me enough room to stage and snap each item as it was brought out, while still enabling Aroura to serve their customers.

With such a large range of dishes and drinks to capture, this would be a full-day shoot. That meant I found myself drawing on another skill that many clients probably don’t realise a photographer requires: Simply huge reserves of stamina. Oh, and strong willpower, of course, to resist nibbling at the endless parade of food and drink being wheeled out.

I also got to trade tips and tricks with Aurora’s head chef. He taught me a thing or two about creating a next-level baked camembert, and I gave him a technical masterclass on setting, snapping and elevating his own food photography for Instagram and beyond. All part of the Simply C service!

One of the great things about working so closely with a client is that I can listen to their ideas and feedback throughout the shoot, and tailor my creative and technical choices to meet their wishes. This also meant he could feed back and sign off on each picture as I shot. Photography requires technical skill of course, but I often find my people-skills come to the fore when working with clients like Aurora.

The end result? Well, check out the images, I think they speak for themselves. What I love about working with Mr Yum is they don’t serve up hype. They let the numbers do the talking. They brought me in to create images that would increase the volume of orders Aurora received on the platform, and that’s what we achieved. Needless to say, I’m excited to be working with them again very soon.

If you’re looking for imagery that will propel your business to new commercial heights, speak to me today.