Case Study: Thai Lotusland

Brief.

Thai Lotusland are a family-owned and operated Thai restaurant, in the market town of Farnham, Surrey.

With a new website and branding in the pipeline - the owner and head chef Jaturong were looking for a restaurant photographer to capture contextual food photography of their offering and white menu imagery for their own takeaway platform and partner apps.

I started off by looking at their soon-to-be-launched identity, and their competitors - both locally and further afield in London. I used this to produce a visually-led brief that would give a good range for the client with their food photography content.

Approach.

Working from my restaurant photography brief, I road-tripped to Farnham for a two-day location shoot at the restaurant.

I split the brief into two sessions; one to capture all 95 + dishes on their takeaway menu, including all variations - shot on a white background and later clipped in post-production to have a pure white background and drop shadow.

The second-day session was more contextually focussed - with restaurant photography being a combination of different table-side food spreads and single food heroes, mixed in with some kitchen reportage imagery of chef Jaturong - along with additional contextural portraiture of the family to add a face to the business. We additionally captured graphic food imagery, to visually encapsulate the yum factor of the food in the simplest terms.

The clients were really happy with their restaurant photography content, and it’s been great to see it used across their website, ordering apps and other touch points.