I have a shoot coming up in a few weeks that will be a trio of firsts for me: first food truck, first food, and first freelance photo gig. Right now, I am mainly looking for any tips or advice for shooting in a food truck. I plan two shoots, one with no customers, focused on the food and kitchen activity, then at the grand opening, with customers and celebrity guests and money and sweat and lots of activity. Any tips on how to handle it?
Tips:
1) Practice hardcore now with takeout food and props for best lighting and composition. 2) For best lighting use natural sunlight preferably in the shade mid afternoon. 3) Shoot around f4 to get low depth of field and focus on the most interesting part of each dish- usually the meat. 4) Pick 10 sample food photos and try to copy them to build your composition skills. 5) Have the food truck give you samples of their plates, wrapper, etc. Is it much easier to shoot flat plates than bowls that hide the food. 6) It is far easier to use friends or employees so you can direct specifically to hold still for any shots holding or eating food. 7) Do not be afraid to use higher ISOs to keep shutter speed above 1/100 and images sharp. 8) Bring a table that matches the style of the truck to make it easier to shoot food. 9) Make sure the food truck has logo dishes or deli papers to make branding stronger.
Thank you! This is great advice.