What to Expect When You Hire a Food Photographer

Amanda Richardson
4 days ago
6 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

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My Process: The Food Photography Intensive

I work a little differently than most. I don't give you a proposal or a price list, instead I start with a deep dive into your business and deliverables built specifically for the outcome you are looking for. I call it an intensive.

A food photography intensive is a working document I build for your specific project. It's a blueprint and a total project price all in one.

Hero Intensives get a full custom outline and shot list.

Cookbook Intensives get a full custom manuscript outline to help guide your writing plus a book map, which is a working spreadsheet that lays out your specific book.

At the end you get a full project price based on the full strategic direction and exact deliverables you need. They are all yours to keep.

STEP ONE: The Fit Call

Fifteen minutes. Free. Not a pitch and not a sales call.

I want you to make sure I am the right fit for you. Do you like the work you have seen on my website? Do you feel like collaboration will be smooth? In the same breath, I want to make sure I can help you with what you want and need. It's an important step for both of us, and if it isn't a match or I don't think I can help you, I will be honest and say so. I don't want to waste your time and I want your project to have the exact outcome you want.

However, if we are a go, we go! And we book your intensive right there on the spot.

STEP TWO: The Intensive

This is a focused deep dive into your business, your brand, or your cookbook. It's dedicated time devoted to crafting the full vision and scope of your project. You basically brain-dump everything you have ever thought about for this project. Then I take all of it and translate it into a full strategy built around purposeful imagery that tells a story and has proper placement. You walk away with a document that you can take immediate action on. It's a blueprint for your project.

A note for marketing agencies and publishers

Even if you're representing the company or the author rather than being the client yourself, this document is gold. It kicks off a project in a way that no other photographer will do, not like this.

You might be shopping and getting a lot of proposals, but none of those bids will include the depth that I walk through and provide.

A DISCOVERY CALL vs. MY INTENSIVE

Typical discovery calls

A free discovery call goes like this. It's usually about 30 minutes long, and both people show up with something to accomplish. The creative wants the job. You want a competitive bid from someone who can infer your desired outcome from a half hour conversation. Everyone circles the elephant in the room: fitting project scope into a budget.

That model works fine for a lot of projects, I have personally done those calls for years and plenty of excellent artists run their business exactly that way. But I’ve learned a lot about my own process over the years and it just isn't enough room for the kind of work I do anymore.

My Intensive: The Call

I come prepared to this meeting. It is a meeting about you, your brand, or your book. I've reviewed the possible recipes you want or the images that you need to tell your story, all of which you send me in advance, and then I listen to you. Most of the call is about listening to you. Where you are going and where you want to be. It is never about me telling you how to get there.

My Intensive: The Deliverables (5 to 7 days later)

It takes me about a week to pull everything together. I prepare a very detailed but concise outline for you.

The Hero Intensive yields a fully customized brief based on everything we discussed plus a full shot list, not just of the recipes but the purpose behind them and the vision that will take shape around them.

This is about explaining why I would select lamb chops over your roasted chicken for your home page hero image. Maybe your chicken is the better seller, but the chops carry a colorful pomegranate syrup and a pistachio crust. The colors alone say more in an image than a brown roasted chicken can. But that's not the only reason I chose it. During our intensive you also told me you are rebranding with a new location and a more discerning customer experience. Lamb carries that voice in a way that everyday chicken cannot. This image has a lot of work to do in about 15 seconds, so it better be eye catching and mouth watering all at once.

The Cookbook Intensive yields 2 working documents. The first is your manuscript outline (PDF). Our intensive goes through each layer of what a cookbook requires and the detailed nuances of your specific book. This outline is the gold, it is your second brain, all the ideas and thoughts that have been rumbling around in your head for years. It's a full scale document that guides your specific book idea through to the end.

The second is your book map. If you are working with a publisher they might also create a book map. Mine is a living, breathing spreadsheet that everyone involved can edit and add to. It represents every page of your book, whether that's 180 pages or 325, and it's a reference to use and fill in along the way.

Both documents are yours to keep, same as the Hero brief. No strings.

Can You Take That Blueprint to Someone Else?

Yes, you absolutely can, and someone else can take the pictures if that's what you want.

But do I want you to? No, of course not.

My spark comes from seeing the whole picture. Plenty of artists light beautifully. Plenty of stylists build a gorgeous plate. I've worked next to people who are extraordinary at both. But I am one artist delivering a full project. I pull the words off the page creating an image from what is said between the lines. That's my magic.

Your Project Cost

At the end of our second meeting I hand you a full scope project briefing including total cost for me to execute this project for you. You get not just an estimate, but a mindful bottom line project cost that covers the full scope of your total project while also getting you the results you actually need.

What This Does for You

This is a luxury. This is for a business or author that knows they want more out of a full production culinary photoshoot, but they don't know exactly what that is supposed to look or feel like. You build that feeling for other people every time you plate a dish. You gather the ingredients, you prepare it, you time it, and you sweat the details nobody notices until they go missing. But no one has ever built that for you.

This is it. No one else offers this model, because no one is me. I like to color outside the lines a little, so give me your big picture vision and I will capture every detail.

You don't want to be building your own shot lists and hoping the recipes are the right fit. You definitely don't want to be sourcing props or spending hours on Etsy looking for the right vintage copper pot, because honestly you don't know if that's even the right fit for the shot.

Most importantly, you're not trying to explain your vision three separate times to three separate people. You hand it over once, to one person, and you get it back done. That's the whole purpose here, to remove all the overwhelm and the guessing games.

By the end of the intensive, the guessing is over. You can see the whole project laid out in front of you. You know what we're shooting, you know why each image earns its place, and you know exactly what it costs.

STEP THREE: Booking Your Shoot Dates

We can put your shoot on the calendar right there on the delivery call, and by then there isn't much heavy lifting left on your end. I already have almost everything I need from you.

Brand shoots book about 2 to 3 months out and I highly suggest getting on the calendar at least 4 to 6 months out for your cookbook, but even then you can go longer with an 8 to 12 month window if you want the full support and scope of my guidance and support as you write your manuscript and test your recipes. Even authors with publishers genuinely benefit from this process because it reduces the overwhelm.

Thirty days the minimum breathing room I can allow for booking on a brand shoot and 60 days for a cookbook. Because remember behind the scenes I'm going deep on concepts, sourcing props, and prepping with my team.

I only take a handful of projects per year. This way I am only working with one client at a time, which keeps my creative juices flowing specifically for you. Space is limited so it is best to reach out and book the 15-minute call so we can get a sense of when you need the final images.