What should a food photography session for the menu, Google and social include?

Three uses, one shot list

The menu wants a recognisable plate, with the real portion and a crop that survives print or a QR. Google Business wants the frontage, the room, the bar and the food, because someone searching “near me” decides from those photos before they call. Social wants vertical, detail and a short sequence, not the same horizontal cropped by force.

If that list is not agreed before the day, you shoot twenty plates and never get the door. Then you have to go back. Better to decide with the kitchen what is a hero and what can wait for another visit.

• Dishes that are on the menu and on delivery, just plated.
• One set table and a room frame in service light.
• Frontage or entrance, so Google matches the street.
• A bar, drink or dessert detail if that is what people order.
• A short portrait of whoever cooks or serves, with permission.
• Horizontal for web and menu, vertical for stories and reels.

What is in the delivery, and what is not

The delivery is edited photos, clearly named, at a size that works for the web and for a reasonable menu print. Retouching removes distractions; it does not invent a plate. The deadline is said on the day of the visit. Raw files are not the job unless you agree them: what you publish is the edit.

Unless you ask for it, a long video, a menu redesign and posting on social are not included. The same team can do that — Carlota works the bank afterwards — but it is another line of the job and it has to appear in the proposal.

Rights and formats, in writing

The uses a restaurant actually needs are the website, the printed or digital menu, Google Business, the venue’s social accounts and ads for that venue. If the contract only says “photographer’s portfolio”, you cannot run the file as an ad. Ask for those commercial uses in the same document as the price.

Ask for both orientations too. A beautiful horizontal does not save a story. The reverse is also true: a vertical does not open a website header well. Both are planned in the session, not cropped afterwards until the plate is cut off.

The order of the day in the venue

First the list is fixed with the kitchen. Then you photograph at the moment the plate would leave for the table, not half an hour later. The room is shot when the light helps, often before service or in an agreed gap. The team comes in at the end, in a real gesture, not in a line.

Cristina Osuna runs that order in the restaurant. If you want the list adapted to your menu, send it on WhatsApp. We say what fits the visit and what can wait, so you do not pay for frames nobody will publish.

After delivery, so it does not sit in a folder

The day the files arrive, someone at the venue has to know which one opens the menu, which one goes to Google and which one is the vertical for the story. If that is not labelled, two weeks later the least useful frame gets published because it was first in the folder. We mark the uses in the delivery exactly to avoid that lottery.

Carlota can carry that bank on social, but only if the venue wants that line. It is not automatic and it is not hidden inside the photo session. If you want it, say so. If you do not, with the shot list and the rights in writing the restaurant can already update the menu, the listing and the profile without shooting the same plate again the next day.

If the menu changes by season, do not redo everything. Mark the dishes that have died and the ones coming in, and the next visit is short. A full session is for when the room has changed too, not every time a new dessert appears.