Menus, packs, pours and short films, shot in Mumbai by a product studio that plans the whole day around whatever melts first.
A face cream will sit under a light all afternoon and look the same at five as it did at ten. Food will not. Steam lasts seconds. Ice starts melting the moment it leaves the freezer. Sauces skin over, greens wilt under the lights, and condensation has to be the right kind: fine beads on a cold glass, not a fogged tumbler that looks like it has been waiting on a dhaba counter since lunch. That is the whole difference between food photography and every other kind of product photography we do in Mumbai. The product has a clock on it, and the day is built around that clock.
The craft underneath is the one we already use on skincare and fragrance. Light built for texture. Surfaces chosen on purpose. Macro glass at a real distance, so the syrup on a jalebi or the crumb of a biscuit reads as texture instead of a brown shape. And a food stylist who knows what holds up under a light and what collapses by the second take. It is why food and beverage already sits in our product film work.
A food photographer on their own can get you the stills. A food video production company can get you the reel. Most brands need both, from the same plate, in the same week. So we shoot them on the same set on the same day: the hero dish is cooked, styled and lit once, and two cameras use it. Stills on a film day are the cheapest good stills a brand can buy. We say it on our product photography page too, and it is as true of a biryani as of a serum.
We shoot for packaged food and beverage brands (snacks, coffee, sauces, spirits and mixers), for restaurants and hospitality groups that need menus and delivery-app images, and for agencies arriving with a storyboard. For how we think about a plated frame, see the LOVETC hero film: we built a restaurant table inside the studio and served a lip conditioner like a bowl of noodles, chopsticks and all. Wrong product, same grammar. The table, the props, the camera height and the light do the persuading, which is most of how anything ends up looking expensive on camera.
Every food set runs on hero plates and stand-ins. The hero is the plate the camera sees. The stand-in is the one that sits under the lights for an hour while we get the light right, and nobody is asked to eat it. The rest of the day is sequencing: the shot list is ordered by what dies first.
We do not publish a food rate card, and a per-image price quoted before anyone has seen the menu is a guess wearing a number. Food is quoted on the day and on the deliverables, like the rest of our photography. These are the things that actually move it:
Market ranges are in our note on what product photography costs in India, and if there is a film in the plan, here is what a shoot day costs, department by department. The quickest route to a real number is to send us the list.
We quote food photography per shoot, not per image, because the price depends on the number of dishes or SKUs, stills versus film, and how much styling each plate needs. Send us the menu or SKU list, where the images will run and whether you need video, and we will send a costed quote within 48 hours.
Yes. On anything plated or poured, a food stylist is part of the crew we quote, because a photographer rearranging coriander between frames is how a shoot day quietly doubles. The stylist plans the hero plates and stand-ins, preps whatever has to be fresh, and keeps each plate camera-ready while we light. If you have a chef or stylist you trust, we are happy to work alongside them.
Yes. We bring a compact lighting kit, surfaces and the stylist to you, ideally outside service hours, because a lit set and a Saturday lunch rush do not share a kitchen well. Your chefs cook, the stylist finishes the plate and we shoot a few steps from the pass. Some things are still easier in our Mumbai studio: pours, splashes and anything that needs a long, controlled setup.
It depends on the plates more than the clock. For hero and campaign stills on product work, where every item gets its own surface, light and styling, we plan three to five in a full day, and plated food is rarely faster. Menu and delivery-app sets on one angle and one light move far quicker, because only the plate changes. Ice, steam, pours and film passes slow everything down, so give us the full list early and we will tell you now if it is two days, not at 4pm on the first one.
Yes, usually on the same set and the same day as the stills, framed for 9:16, 1:1 and 16:9 on the day rather than cropped later. When a pour needs proper slow motion we spec a high frame rate camera for it, which is one of the few jobs where the camera body genuinely earns its rate.
Yes: the food you sell is the food in the frame. What gets swapped is the scaffolding around it, such as stand-in plates while we light, acrylic ice that does not melt mid-take, and a glycerine mix that holds beads on a glass longer than real condensation would. The dish itself, portion included, stays honest, partly because the ASCI advertising code tells food ads not to show inappropriately large portions, and partly because your customer will compare the photo with what arrives.
Usually we do, through the food stylist, as its own line on the quote and in duplicate, so there is always a fresh hero. Packaged brands send stock: at least three units per SKU, five days early, one to open for testing and one kept sealed for the hero. Restaurants cook their own dishes on the day, and we bring garnish, props and anything bought fresh that morning, which usually means someone at a Mumbai market before the crew has had its first chai.