Four Restaurants.
Four.
There was a week when I shot four restaurants in five days.
The first restaurant gave me one month’s notice.
It was not my first time.
The brief: it had to be done on that particular day, particular time, particular space. The stylist is the chef. Art director the chef’s partner.
Generally, they trust me.
The second restaurant, one week’s notice.
The brief was a refresh of the existing menu. The background did not matter as the shots will be cropped in post-production. I was given the current menu as a reference, told to bring my nicest plates, which we did not use anyway.
The shoot was in a food court. The CEO was there.
Everyone spoke mandarin.
The third, two day’s notice, for a publication.
It paid the least, yet also the most hectic, as I usually do not know what to expect in terms of lighting, food, or how cooperative they’ll be until I arrive. I try my best not to replicate what is on the website, yet not alienate the general public with too much creativity.
The fourth was planned two months earlier, the furthest away, and I carried the least amount of gear.
Client wine and dined me, and perhaps it was the last shoot of the week, it felt like the work mattered.
That I mattered.
As if someone came running looking for a spoon, and that’s the only thing you are grasping in your clenched fist.
There were talks about collaboration - maybe a food photography and a cooking workshop. From baking tray to camera.
If you think this is nothing but self-promotion, well you’re godamn right it is.
Why do you think this post is free from the great wall of payment?
The sponsor of this post is me and my amazing, flexible photography work.
I can shoot whatever the clients want, as long as there’s a brief.
Even without a brief.
A ‘brief’ is simply an industry construct to exercise control.
Something to point to and go ‘see! see!’
Always a funny sight to witness, because those who can afford a brief, usually don’t need one. (Like what, how many ways can we fuck up the indigo blue and logo lock up from the brand guideline?)
And those who decide to ‘wing it’ on the day, usually end up with shots that are inconsistent and unusable for social media.
There has been a lot of talk about the ‘restaurant business’ over the last few months.
Everyone is having a tough time. Shops are closing down.
What should we do to help1?
You know who’s not complaining though?
Bahn Mi restaurants.
Super busy, extremely quiet.
As if life has always been cash in hand.
Here’s an opinion:
It has nothing to do with the businesses or inflation.
Once, and this was almost ten years ago, I was shooting a wedding and sat next to a private loan banker from a big-four bank.
“It is not uncommon for a fresh grad with a $48k salary to apply for a loan to buy a Mercedes Benz,” he told me.
“Surely you reject the idiot?” I asked.
“No, we help them to realise their dream,” he said. “Besides, if we don’t approve it, someone else will, we might as well take the interest.”
It was a Big Short ‘Mark Baum at the Japanese restaurant’ moment for me.
So once again, financial hardship has nothing to do with the nature of business or ‘inflation’.
Here’s a hint: the same banker told me the average Australian has two maxed-out credit cards.
It’s the credit, hot shot.
Since when did Australians care about budget, interest rate, responsible spending, the price of milk?
It has always been owning things right here, right now.
Just let me swipe that card and tell me the Ninja six-in-one food processor is mine. Tell me what I need to do to walk away with a Tesla today.
The only reason people have stopped spending money, is because the banks have started saying no. They are not approving home loans. They stopped giving out credit cards.
Remember what was on the news five years ago?
Boat people.
This country is knee-deep with people, keep them out.
Present day, we need migrants (cough the ones with cash cough) and suddenly we stopped talking about boats and instead about supermarkets manipulating the price of … apples?
Because Apple the computer giant has been playing fair?
Like all Bahn Mi restaurants, banks have been awfully quiet.
I lied again, there was a fifth restaurant I shot in the same week.
Not a client, shot was taken with a phone2.
Corner of Swanston and Queensberry.
Persian food. Kebabs. Honest food.
The owner and wife are in the kitchen. The eldest daughter is at the counter. The younger daughter, Hana’s schoolmate, is on her laptop until 10 pm most days.
We talked a little bit on the way back from school, and he said his family came from Iran with a business visa, and he had to maintain the business for two years.
I do not want to imagine how many restaurants are similar to Ali’s.
And when the media writes about the ‘food industry’, these are not the people they have or you have in mind.
The five restaurants I shot, their bottom lines were different, just like their struggles.
Some run the restaurant to make a living.
Some as a hobby.
Some for self-expression.
To fulfil some dream. To get hats.
Some to build an empire.
Some, just to exist.
The best way to help restaurants is to order something that they absolutely will make money without lifting an eyebrow. Like sparkling water and soft drinks.
If I can do this with a phone, imagine what I can do with a full-frame sensor.