Fast Food Photography | Case Study for a Mosman, Sydney Restaurant

As any new owner who has taken over a pre-existing business will appreciate, one of the first undertakings you often put in place is an initiative to upgrade and improve the look, feel, and general appeal of your premises and products. That is especially true in the fast food industry. And few things accomplish that task more efficiently than redoing your website and store signage with the help of an experienced fast food photographer. But sometimes you need a little more than just a food photographer – as this case study.

Sydney based Mosman Restaurant, Burger Shed

Our client on this occasion was the new owner of Burger Shed, a Mosman, Sydney-based restaurant serving high quality hamburgers, fries, and a variety of sides. As part of his recent takeover and makeover, the owner was installing electronic menu boards, and looking to create printed posters in order to make the business more noticeable from the street, boost advertising, and increase walk-in traffic. Key to that process was the need for high quality photos of their products.

Our brief, therefore, was to create images of about ten separate burgers, as well as images of their fries and sides, all shot against white backgrounds so that the images could be lifted off and incorporated into the client’s various artwork. In addition, they also required a range of creative shots that they could also use for their menu boards and in-store posters.

The shoot took about a day, and occurred in the back corner of the Burger Shed restaurant in Mosman – a minor challenge in itself, since there wasn’t a lot of space, but in a busy takeaway store, that’s often to be expected; and, as we always do, we were able to work around the physical constraints, and make it work for our client.

But, probably because of the constrained space, even for the best burger, and for this Sydney food photographer, this was where a little more was needed.

“The burgers needed a little food styling”

The “little more” in question was that in order to achieve the perfect image, the burgers needed a little food styling to make sure the finished product looked as mouth-watering as it truly was. Since not many food or restaurant photographers possess food styling skills, this process usually requires the additional skills (and expense!) of a professional food stylist to be present on the shoot.

Fortunately, though, in addition to food photography, I also have food styling skills. So, without extra expense or inconvenience to the client, we were able to seamlessly improve the presentation and image of the product so that it looked as good as possible. In fact, good enough to eat! No fuss, no bother, and a lot of value added.

In post-production we cut out the burger, fries, and sides images from the white backgrounds, and transferred them to a transparent background ready for the client’s graphic designer to overlay and drop them into the electronic and poster artwork.

Additionally, in post-production, we brought out the image colours and contrast while, at the same time, ensuring that food remained looking real.

Finally, we retouched any slight flaws, cracks, or minor imperfections that may have appeared in the food during the process of being photographed – after all, even the most delicious, fresh from the grill, hot, and ready-to-eat burger begins to look a little different as it cools down.

The final product was delivered to our client via email. Once again, no fuss, no bother. That, together with attention to detail, flexibility, adaptability, a love of food photography, and a dedication to value-added service, is what Adrian Harrison Photography is all about.