Cafe and drink photography
Tea Method
One upright frame of colorful drinks and mochi donuts on a dark, quiet backdrop.
Explore the projectRestaurant food and dining photography
Black Bamboo: restaurant food and dining photography in West Hartford
Plated dishes, tall drinks, a smiling man with two plates and the Farmington Avenue storefront, photographed for Black Bamboo in West Hartford.
Photographed for The Valley Book.
The restaurant and the assignment
Black Bamboo is a Chinese restaurant on Farmington Avenue in West Hartford, Connecticut. Its website presents the restaurant and its menu.
We photographed Black Bamboo for The Valley Book. A restaurant feature has to answer three questions: what does the food look like, who will you meet, and how do you find the door. The set answers each in turn.
The set begins with a person holding two plates, bringing the food and a welcoming expression together. The next frames concentrate on the dishes, followed by a raised-glass portrait and the storefront. Each change gives the reader another way into the restaurant.
For a restaurant session like this, it helps to plan when each area is photographed, since a dining room and an exterior rarely look their best at the same time.
Learn more: Black Bamboo, West Hartford
Food on dark tables
Two frames focus on the food. Several plated dishes are arranged on a dark tabletop, and plated dishes sit with two tall drinks against a dark background.
Dark surfaces make colorful dishes stand out, because nothing around them competes. The tall drinks add height to the arrangement, and showing several plates at once suggests a shared table, which fits how many people eat Chinese food.
The two frames also work well as a pair for print. One shows a spread of dishes together and the other brings in drinks, so a designer can choose between a full-table view and a lighter, more balanced arrangement depending on the page.
People at the table
The hero portrait shows a smiling man holding two plates of food inside the restaurant. This second frame shows a man raising a glass behind a table of plated food.
Putting a person behind the food adds warmth and scale. The raised glass is a gesture of welcome that works without text, and the table full of plates keeps the food in the frame at the same time.
Placing a person in a food photograph can also change how the dishes read. Plates held out to the viewer feel offered rather than displayed, and a raised glass behind a laden table feels like a shared meal.
The storefront
The last image is a wide view of the restaurant facade and entrance on Farmington Avenue. It gives readers a way to recognize the place when they arrive.
Closing on the exterior turns a set of appetizing pictures into practical information: here is the food, here are the people, and here is where to find it.
A wide exterior is an easy image to underrate. Many diners first meet a restaurant from the street, so an image that shows the facade and entrance clearly helps readers match the picture to the place when they drive by.
Planning takeaways
For a restaurant session, build the shot list around the dishes that best represent the menu, a person or two in the space, and an exterior. Prepare the plates just before they are photographed so they look their best, and clear the table of anything that is not part of the picture.
Think about how the images will be cropped. Upright food frames suit print columns, while wide exterior frames suit website headers.
Also decide in advance who will appear in the photographs and what they will be doing. A person holding plates or raising a glass gives the image a clear action, and it avoids awkward posing while the food is still at its best.
Finally, look at the set as a whole before it is delivered to a publication. Food, people and place should each appear at least once, with a mix of upright and wide frames, so the feature can adapt to the page design without needing another visit.
Related services
- Restaurant and food photography
Menus, dishes, drinks and dining rooms photographed for websites, print and guides.
- Editorial photography
Feature photography planned around how a publication will lay out the page.
- Photography services
Every kind of photography Legend offers in Connecticut.
- Legend's work for The Valley Book
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