Glance at the summary firstThe summary from the end of the lesson, as a road map before you start reading.
Working fast in a restaurant is reading the venue's light and setting up a shooting station, adding a single portable light and a few boards to it, and bringing the plates to that station in a kitchen run order written with the cook. A few ambience shots that tell the restaurant's atmosphere complete the menu frames. In mixed venue light, a face's color is protected by turning off a source or by taking the white balance from a white nearby.
Learning goal
In a working restaurant, you will be able to shoot all the plates of a menu in a single afternoon without disrupting the kitchen's flow. You will read the venue's light before you arrive, and add to it a small set made of a single portable light, a few boards and a table stand. You will have the plates come to a fixed shooting corner where you set up the light once, instead of running from plate to plate yourself. You will plan the order in which the plates leave the kitchen together with the cook, according to the dishes' cooking times and how quickly they fade. Alongside the menu frames, you will shoot a few frames that tell the restaurant's atmosphere, the dining room and the people working at the stove, and protect the color of a face in mixed light.
The question
The restaurant owner wants to fit their twenty-two-dish menu into one Wednesday afternoon; at that hour the kitchen is also preparing takeaway orders. When your friend walks in, they see the situation. One wall of the dining room is large windows, at the other end there are orange wall lamps. The kitchen is narrow and hot, a greenish fluorescent burns over the stoves, waiters come and go with trays. There is neither room nor time to set up the light tent, and going from table to table relighting every plate would take hours. Is working fast in the kitchen possible?
Context
In the light section you learned to decide, in mixed light where lights of different colors fall on the same scene, which source to turn off or which to bring forward (Lesson 18.6). At the tile workshop's table you tried photographing an arrangement and noting it with its distances so you could set it up again in a few minutes the next day (Lesson U.3). In the portrait lesson you also met the environmental portrait, which shows a person inside their own work (Lesson 16.1).
A restaurant makes all this knowledge race against the clock. In the studio, the light waits; in the kitchen, though, the food can't wait for the light and the kitchen doesn't wait for the photographer either. In this lesson we take up how to tie a restaurant's own light, its own layout and its own tempo to the photograph.
Simple explanation
Where is the light set up?
A shooting station is a fixed corner inside the restaurant where you set up the light, the backdrop and the camera once, and to which all the plates are brought in turn. The station's place is chosen by reading the venue: a table beside the large window, if it doesn't get direct sun, is a ready-made soft light source. Being close to the kitchen lets the plates arrive fresh, and staying out of the waiters' path keeps the service from being held up.
The portable set fits into a single bag and a stand: a small light source that renders colors correctly, two V-flats with a light and a dark face, a table stand, two or three surface boards and the food styling kit. The window light stays as the main source, while the portable light supplements it or takes its place when a cloud passes or evening approaches. The dining room's orange wall lamps are turned off or screened at the station, because when they mix with the window light they leave a two-colored light on the plate.
The setup is photographed and noted once. So if a stand slides during the day, or when new dishes are added the next month, the same light is set up again in a few minutes and all the plates on the menu stand in the same world.
In what order do the plates come?
A kitchen run order is setting up, together with the cook, the order in which the plates to be shot will leave the kitchen, according to their cooking times, how quickly the plates fade and the kitchen's load at that hour. Cold mezes and desserts can be prepared and shot while the hot dishes cook. A casserole that cooks for a long time goes on the stove early, while a dessert with ice cream is brought last and right from beside the freezer. The angle each plate will be shot from and the surface it will stand on are written on the list beforehand; when the plate arrives, it is carried out instead of decided.
This order is an agreement with the kitchen. The half hour when takeaway orders peak is left empty, and in that time the photographer refreshes the light, changes the cards and looks over what has been shot. Who will eat a plate after it is shot is also discussed in advance; in most restaurants the plates shot are the team's lunch.
How is the restaurant's atmosphere told?
An ambience shot is a frame that tells not a plate on the menu but the restaurant itself: a full dining room, the cook at the stove, plates waiting on the counter, a table in the light filtering in through the window. A customer chooses a restaurant not only by its plates but by its atmosphere too. These frames are often shot away from the station, in the venue's own light, and quickly.
The venue's light is often mixed. On the face of a cook at the stove, the orange of the fire, the greenish color of the fluorescent overhead and the daylight from the door can all be together. On dark skin the fluorescent's green can smother the skin's warmth and make it look leaden, while on light skin it leaves a yellowish pallor. Turning the fluorescent off if possible, and if not, taking the white balance from a white apron near the skin or turning the face toward the fire and the daylight, protects the skin's own color.
Visual evidence
Your friend comes before noon and reads the dining room: the corner table beside the large window doesn't get direct sun in the afternoon. They make it the station. They have the wall lamps turned off, set out an LED panel, two V-flats and two surface boards, and photograph the setup with the phone.
Together with the cook they write a kitchen run order: first six mezes, then three soups while the casserole is in the oven, then the grills, and last the rice pudding and a shredded-pastry dessert with ice cream. Between three and half past three, when takeaway orders peak, is left empty. A waiter brings the plates to the station in turn; your friend shoots each one in a few minutes from the angle written beforehand. When a cloud passes, the LED panel makes up for what the window lacks; the plates' color doesn't change.
At half past three they go into the kitchen and shoot the cook at the stove. Olive-brown-skinned, with his sweaty forehead and white apron, he stands at the grill. In the first frame the fluorescent overhead has smothered his face in a leaden green. The cook agrees to turn off the fluorescent for a few minutes; your friend takes the white balance from the apron. In the new frame his face is lit by the grill's orange light and the daylight filtering in through the door, and the drops of sweat on his forehead and the warm brown of his skin stand out. At six in the evening twenty-two plates and five ambience shots are ready; the plates shot are on the team's table.
Common mistakes
Common mistakeRelighting each plate in a different corner of the restaurant.
Hours pass and the plates come out in different lights. The fix: set up a single shooting station and have the plates brought there.
Common mistakeLeaving the order in which the plates come from the kitchen to chance.
The ice cream melts, the hot dish cools and the kitchen slows down. The fix: write a kitchen run order with the cook according to cooking time and how fast each dish spoils.
Common mistakeShooting a cook working in mixed light without looking at the white balance.
The skin shifts to green or leaden gray. The fix: ask for the fluorescent to be turned off, or take the white balance from the apron's white.
Summary
Working fast in a restaurant is reading the venue's light and setting up a shooting station, adding a single portable light and a few boards to it, and bringing the plates to that station in a kitchen run order written with the cook. A few ambience shots that tell the restaurant's atmosphere complete the menu frames. In mixed venue light, a face's color is protected by turning off a source or by taking the white balance from a white nearby.
Mini assignment
In this assignment you will set up a shooting station in a kitchen or a café and shoot a few plates in turn.
- In your home's kitchen, or in a café where you have permission, make a corner near the window a shooting station; set up the light, the boards and the backdrop and photograph the setup.
- For at least five foods or drinks, write an order according to cooking time and how fast each spoils, decide the angle for each beforehand and shoot them in turn.
- Shoot someone working in the venue's own light in an ambience shot, with their consent; if there is mixed light, take the white balance from a white surface near them.
Check yourself
- Do all the plates look as if in the same light and the same world?
- Thanks to the order you wrote, was every plate shot before it faded?
- Is the face in the ambience shot in its own color in the mixed light?
Glossary
| Term | Short definition |
|---|---|
| Shooting station | A fixed corner where the light, the backdrop and the camera are set up once and all the plates are brought in turn. |
| Kitchen run order | Setting up with the cook the order in which the plates to be shot leave the kitchen, according to cooking time, how fast they spoil and the kitchen's load. |
| Ambience shot | A frame that tells not a plate but the restaurant itself, its dining room, its kitchen and its staff. |
Mini quiz
1. Why is a shooting station set up?
- A) To show each plate in a different light
- B) To set up the light once and shoot all the plates in the same light and quickly
- C) To block the waiters' path
- D) To switch off the venue's light entirely
2. Where does a dessert with ice cream go in the kitchen run order?
- A) At the very beginning
- B) Together with the casserole
- C) At a random place
- D) At the very end, so that it is brought straight from beside the freezer
3. What does an ambience shot tell?
- A) The restaurant's dining room, kitchen and staff
- B) The detail of a single plate
- C) The prices on the menu
- D) The plate's ellipse
4. How is the face of an olive-brown-skinned cook working under fluorescent light protected?
- A) By raising the ISO
- B) By leaving it to the camera's automatic white balance
- C) By turning off the fluorescent or taking the white balance from the apron's white
- D) By turning the frame black and white
Answers
- B — A fixed corner removes the time spent setting up the light again and gives the menu a single look.
- D — Melting is the fastest spoiling; the dessert comes last to the ready light, without waiting.
- A — A customer chooses a restaurant by its plates and also by its atmosphere and people.
- C — Removing the green source or setting for a neutral white brings back the skin's warmth.
Summary card
- Read the venue in advance; set up a shooting station beside the window.
- Portable set: a single light, two V-flats, a table stand, surfaces, the food styling kit.
- Kitchen run order: cooking time, how fast it spoils, the kitchen's busy hour.
- Complete the menu with ambience shots.
- In mixed light, turn off a source or take the white from the apron.
Bridge to the next lesson
In the evening, the arcade's tradespeople's association meets at the restaurant. The tile craftswoman, the jeweler and the restaurant owner want to open a joint online catalog for the arcade's twelve shops: over three hundred products, all with the same look. Your friend thinks about how frames that each shop shot in a different light will stand side by side. How do you shoot hundreds of products consistently? The next lesson takes up carrying the same light, the same color and a fixed template to hundreds of products, and delivering the work to the client in an orderly way.