How to choose a food photographer for your brand

Most brands choose a food photographer the wrong way around. They open Instagram or Google, find someone whose work looks beautiful, check the price, and make the call. The portfolio looks good, the costs check out, and the shoot goes ahead.

And then the content arrives and sits in a forgotten folder for the foreseeable future (or a couple of photos get used immediately, but nobody knows what to do with the rest). The images are beautiful, technically right and match the brief, but they don’t quite feel like what the brand needs. The food looks good, but doesn’t seem to be saying anything. There’s no clear thread between one image and the next. The portfolio that convinced them to hire this person was full of interesting work (or maybe someone recommended this photographer to you), but what you needed was proof that they were able to bring the right expertise and experience to the project, be the creative director or suggest hiring one, and be able to create images with a specific audience and marketing goals in mind.

This is the most common mistake in the hiring process, and it happens almost entirely because people know how to evaluate whether they like an image, but not whether an image is doing its job. Those are very different skills, and the second one is what you actually need when you’re choosing a photographer for your brand.

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Know what you need before you look at a single portfolio

Before you start looking at anyone’s work, it’s helpful to be clear on a few foundational points, as clarity makes the conversation more useful from the start. I always mention that you don’t need a full brief before reaching out to a photographer, as this is often a grey area nobody talks about: on one side, there are founders, agencies and marketing teams scrambling to gather all the details and make a document as comprehensive as possible so they can control every little thing. On the other side, there are inexperienced photographers or people with a limited process, who actually prefer to just be told what to do. After nearly a decade working with clients of all sizes (from well-known names like Cadbury to businesses just starting out), I have enough experience under my sleeve to be able to have a clear opinion on this matter: while it’s completely fine and common to have a photographer who isn’t also taking care of the creative direction part (I do it), hiring someone who just follows a brief blindly will 99% of the time result in images that will end up being forgotten after the first use. And it’s the same for clients who try to micromanage the project and the person they hired for the job. For great results, there needs to be a certain degree of trust and willingness to collaborate on both sides — this is non-negotiable. The right hire will help you finalise the details with the skills and point of view that only a person who does this job every week can provide. In this context, I feel incredibly lucky (even if lucky is not the right word… I worked hard for this) to be able to provide clients with a point of view that covers creative direction, photography, videography, styling and marketing.

But let’s get back to the main topic: the most important thing to know is how the images will actually be used. Packaging requires a completely different approach from social media. Website hero images need a different composition from a launch campaign content. Paid advertising has its own requirements. This single piece of information shapes how a shoot needs to be planned, what the photographer needs to prepare, and what the images need to do — so arriving at a first conversation with a clear answer to “where is this content going?” is way more valuable than arriving with a mood board.

Beyond that: do you need photography only, or photography and video? How many images are you thinking of? And do you have a rough sense of budget? None of these answers need to be fixed figures. They just give the photographer enough to have a proper conversation with you.

An experienced photographer will build the rest of the brief with you through the right questions, a structured planning process, and the kind of knowledge that turns a rough direction into a clear shoot plan. The mood board, for instance, is something I always create myself once we’ve worked through the brief together — it’s part of my process, not the client’s homework. But I know some photographers expect clients to bring a fully formed visual direction. Knowing which kind you’re dealing with before you book is itself a useful thing to establish early.

The full detail of what a food photography brief should cover (and what most brands consistently leave out) is in this post.

What to actually look for in a portfolio

The most honest answer is that you’re looking for a gut feeling — and it’s a good idea to trust it more than a checklist. When you look at a portfolio and think “this person could work with my brand”, what you’re usually responding to is a combination of two things, even if you can’t immediately name them.

The first is flexibility. Not in the sense of having covered every possible style, format, or food category, but rather that the work doesn’t feel locked into one mode. A photographer whose portfolio feels like it could only ever look one specific way, regardless of the subject, is a photographer who will likely bring their aesthetic to your brief rather than bring your brief to life. What you want to see (even in personal projects, editorial work, or images that have nothing to do with your product) is evidence that the work is in service of the subject, meaning it was made for a reason specific to that image, not just made to look like everything else in the portfolio. I know it’s a concept that’s difficult to grasp, but after all these years working in the industry, I know it’s an essential one.

Every photographer has their own visual language, and that’s part of what you’re choosing when you hire someone. The goal is to find someone whose style has enough range that it can flex in the direction your brand needs: a photographer who works almost exclusively in one very specific visual register (very polished/edited with bold colours, or very dark and editorial, or very lifestyle and natural) isn’t necessarily wrong for your project, but it’s a question to think about. Can their work move toward what you need, or would the brief require them to work against everything their portfolio shows? The answer to that question is more useful than asking whether their best work looks beautiful — which it probably does, regardless.

The second is intentionality. Every image should feel considered — the light, the composition, the styling, the mood. Not perfect, not technically flawless, but deliberately made. There’s a difference between a photograph that was set up with purpose and one that was taken because the food was there and looked good. That difference shows, and it matters for commercial work because intentionality on a personal project usually translates directly to intentionality on a client brief.

What the portfolio doesn’t need to contain is a specific mix of work types. Personal projects, editorial food photography, and commercial brand work can all demonstrate the same underlying skills. You should approach the portfolio with this question in mind: does the work show someone who thinks carefully about what an image needs to do before they pick up the camera?

Range is another important factor to take into account: a photographer who has worked across different types of food, aesthetics, and formats will generally adapt more readily to a new brief than one whose portfolio is all variations of the same thing. But range is a supporting piece, more than a specific requirement on its own.

The photographer and stylist question

One of the most practically important things to establish before hiring is whether the photographer you’re talking to also handles food styling, or whether styling is something you’d need to source separately.

Food photography and food styling are two distinct areas. The photographer handles the technical and creative aspects of capturing the image. The stylist prepares and arranges the food — choosing ingredients, plating, managing the appearance of everything in the frame throughout the shoot, handling the challenges that come with food on set (things wilting, separating, losing their surface, behaving differently than expected under certain conditions). A full breakdown of what each involves is in this post.

Some photographers also do styling. Some don’t and bring in a dedicated stylist. Some work exclusively as photographers and expect the client to handle the food preparation and presentation. These are three completely different setups, and they produce different results and require different planning from the brand.

If styling is included in the photographer’s scope, ask what that actually involves — whether they source their own props, cook and prepare the food, and have their own prop/backdrop collection or whether you’d need to supply everything. If styling is a separate hire, factor that into the budget and planning timeline from the start.

I do both photography and styling, which is not a universal thing. My prop and backdrop collection has grown significantly over the years (with plates, glasses, bowls, cutlery, cups, linens and over forty backgrounds and backdrop options), which means shoots can be planned and executed without the brand needing to source anything beyond their products and without the additional cost of renting or purchasing props (which also saves a lot of time). If we need to find new props for a specific project, that’s usually something I cover as well. That kind of setup changes the planning process and what a client needs to prepare.

Questions to ask and what good answers sound like

The questions a photographer asks you are often as revealing as the answers they give to your questions. A photographer with a serious, tried and tested process will ask about your brand, where the images will be used, what you need them to communicate, and what your timeline looks like — before they’ve even sent you a quote. And also send you more questions the minute you sign the contract. That’s not being nosy, trust me. This is simply what it looks like when someone is thinking about your project properly rather than just trying to fill a slot in their calendar. It honestly took me a while to have this kind of process in place with my clients, but it’s a game-changer — for both sides.

The questions you should ask in return:

How do you approach the planning stage? A photographer with a clear process will tell you exactly what happens between enquiry and shoot — brief, mood board, shot list, what they need from you and when, what they’ll prepare. Someone who doesn’t have a clear answer to this question probably doesn’t have a structured process, which tends to show up on the day or in the final images.

What’s included in your fee? This seems obvious but comes up repeatedly as a source of confusion. Does the fee include styling? Props? Props sourcing? Studio equipment? Studio hire? Post-production? How many final edited images? What turnaround time? Usage and licensing? Two quotes at similar price points can be covering very different scopes.

Who creates the mood board? In my process, I create the mood board — it’s part of my preparation, not something I hand off to the client to put together (though it’s true that clients sometimes arrive with a few ideas on their own, and that’s perfectly fine). Not every photographer works this way, and some expect clients to bring a fully formed visual direction (or hire a creative director for the shoot). Knowing this upfront changes what you need to prepare.

How do you handle usage rights and licensing? If you’re planning to use the images in paid advertising, on packaging, or across multiple channels over a long period, this needs to be established from the start. Usage rights significantly affect cost, and discovering this after the shoot is an expensive and avoidable surprise. A detailed post on this is in ” How much does food photography cost“, which covers what drives pricing and why usage is one of the most consistently misunderstood parts of the process. You should talk with the photographer about usage rights, licensing, timeframe (and renewal options), paid advertising, and copyright.

Can you walk me through how you’d approach a project like mine? This is more useful than asking for perfectly matching examples of previous work. A photographer who can speak specifically about how they’d think through your brief (mentioning things like setup, creative direction, styling direction, or challenges specific to your product type) is giving you far more useful information than a portfolio that happens to contain something similar. If they can’t engage with your brief at this stage, that tells you something, too.

Red flags to take seriously

The absence of a planning process is the biggest one. A photographer who takes a brief (or doesn’t even need one) and moves straight to the shoot without a structured preparation stage (no detailed brief, mood board, shot list, or conversation about the details) is creating the conditions for a shoot that produces technically good images that won’t be useful for the brand.

A price that seems significantly lower than everyone else without a clear explanation is another — I know an incredibly low rate makes you fall for the “shiny object syndrome” faster than you can even say the cost out loud, but this is a business investment and needs to be thought through thoroughly. Food photography involves time, preparation, equipment, and expertise, and a quote that doesn’t account for those things is often a sign that they’re not being provided. Occasionally, someone is simply building their portfolio and pricing accordingly — in which case they’ll usually say so. If they don’t, ask what’s included and why the price is structured the way it is.

No contract, no usage rights or vague licensing terms are a serious one, particularly if you’re planning to use the images commercially. A professional photographer will have a clear contract that specifies deliverables, timeline, usage rights, and what happens if either party needs to change the terms. Vague arrangements tend to produce vague outcomes.

Reluctance to share examples of brand work or to discuss the planning process in any detail before a booking is confirmed is also a red flag. Most professional photographers are happy to talk through how they work and what the process looks like — it’s all part of how they build trust with a new client.

Understanding pricing

Food photography pricing varies significantly based on experience, what’s included, scope, and intended usage. The range is wide enough that a single number is almost meaningless without context.

Rather than trying to quote a market rate here, the “How much does food photography cost” post covers this in detail — what drives the price up or down, why usage rights matter so much, what cheap photography tends to cost you in the long run, and what to factor into your budget before you start approaching people.

The short version: know your end use before you discuss pricing, ask explicitly what’s included in any quote, and be wary of comparing quotes without understanding what each one actually covers.

Local, remote, or somewhere in between

The assumption that a food photographer needs to be based in the same city (or even the same country) as their client deserves to be talked about because it rules out a lot of good working relationships for the wrong reasons.

For photography that involves a specific product, the practical question is simply: can the product get to the photographer? For most packaged food and drink, shipping is straightforward. I’ve worked with brands whose products were distributed internationally, with the product shipped directly to my studio and the entire project (recipe development, photography, and delivery of final images) handled remotely without the client ever setting foot on set. In one case, the client was a well-known international brand and the agency managing the project was based in the US. Everything was coordinated remotely and the process was smooth because the planning was thorough.

There are genuine limitations, though. Perishable products that can’t be shipped, shoots that require a specific location, or situations where international shipping costs or logistics make the whole thing impractical — those are situations in which working with someone local makes more sense. But those cases are fewer than most brands assume when they automatically search for a photographer in their own city.

For recipe content that doesn’t feature a specific product (think food content for nutritionists, wellness professionals, food bloggers, or brands that occasionally want recipe content without a product focus), location is essentially irrelevant. I can develop and photograph recipes using ingredients available locally, deliver the content, and the client never needs to send anything. This works for once-off projects and for ongoing monthly retainers equally well.

The client doesn’t need to be present during the shoot either. I work without real-time client approval on set: this doesn’t mean the client isn’t involved; it’s simply a sign that the planning process that happens beforehand covers everything that would otherwise need to be decided in the moment. By the time the shoot day arrives, the brief is complete, the mood board is approved, the shot list is confirmed, and there are no open questions left to answer. That’s what makes remote work function properly.

For shoots that benefit from proximity (location work, on-site photography, or projects where the product needs to be included but can’t be shipped), I work primarily in Dublin and occasionally across Ireland.

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Read this before you start looking

The photographer you choose will shape how your brand looks for as long as you use that content, and potentially for much longer if the work gets repurposed, featured, or becomes part of your established visual identity.

If you only had to leave with one main takeaway from reading this blog post, let it be this one: you are not just looking for someone who takes pretty food photographs. You are planning an investment for your business and you are looking for someone who understands what you’re trying to do with those photographs and someone with the process, experience, and creative range to make that happen reliably.

If you want to understand more about what the process looks like in practice, the “How to brief a food photographer” post covers the planning stage in detail. And if you’re at the point where you are starting to think about a photoshoot, get in touch with me here — the first step is always a chat about what you need.