Hotel Food Photography for Evelyn's Nashville

Evelyns Hutton Hotel Food and Beverage Program

Since 2016 I have wanted to photograph the food and beverage program for a hotel. I had put out a ton of bids, but it just never happened. So when Evelyn’s at the Hutton Hotel reached out to me early this year I was stoked to say the least, but also had a nagging feeling it might not happen. This time was different. My friend Carly who I had previously worked with at another restaurant was the new GM. Since we had worked together before it made the process simple. The hotel industry is difficult to break into. I am thankful for this opportunity and I think we came up with some excellent imagery. This meant that I was going to bring the A team with me.

Evelyns needed a few photos for their updated menu featuring some seasonal items. They had a rock start chef and they also wanted to add a food stylist to the shoot to make sure the presentation of each dish was top notch. In fine dining it is essential to not just plate the dish, but ensure that it meets the chef’s vision. We enlisted Callie Blount as our food stylist. Callie is the perfect fit because of her willingness to work hard and to learn. Not to mention her amazing food styling skills and her eye for details.

For this shoot we wanted to use the space and also have a bit moodier lighting. So we had a Daniel Williams as the photo assistant on set to help out with lighting and moving gear. We used a large light, on a rolling stand to make set changes efficient.

For hotel industry photography I want to make sure that we capture the right vibe. We don’t just need amazing looking food we need a sense of place. I wanted to make sure we know that this amazing food was also in a really great environment. From a photographic standpoint that meant photographing the scene from a bit further away and using a bit of a wider lens. This lens choice gave us a more natural view of the food and the restaurant. It helped to capture the sense of place that we were looking for.

Since this was an active restaurant space we needed to keep a light foot print, and also move relatively quickly. We did a half day shoot starting just after the breakfast rush and finished just before the true lunch rush. Having a food stylist helps us move faster for this type of shoot. The chef can plate each dish, but allow the food stylist to add the elements of the dish that will fall with gravity and time. The food stylist adds things like the micro greens, sauces, and stacks things that will fall down over time. This allows the chef to be in the kitchen and come back to help when needed.

One of the most common questions I get is how many dishes can we capture in a half day or a full day. In this instance we were able to capture 11 unique dishes. We did this in 4 unique settings. We had a total of 40 unique deliverable final images and we took close to 400 images during the shoot.

I was so glad that we had a successful shoot for Evelyn’s. We brought a great team and came away with some excellent photos for marketing and advertising the restaurant. I walked away more confident than I went into the shoot. My team and I proved that not only can we photograph fine dining for the hospitality industry we can do it well and with a high degree of excellence. If you have a hotel food and beverage program that is in need of fresh content please reach out.

Peg Leg Porker Tennessee Whiskey

Nothing makes me more thirsty than a good cocktail image. I first met Carrie Bringle owner of Peg Leg Porker a few years back while photographing the Kentucky State BBQ Competition for a client. I had to get a few shots of Carrie and his competition team for my client as part of a larger story on the competition and the city of Danville, KY. The shoot went well and I went along with life. About a year later one of my other editorial clients reached out for me to do an editorial shoot with Peg Leg Porker Whiskey. This time I met up with Carrie at his restaurant in the heart of Nashville’s Gulch neighborhood. I got to know Carrie pretty well on this shoot and when it came time for his team to pick out a photographer to do a new photoshoot I was on the top of the list. The team needed some new shots of their whiskeys on both white and black backgrounds, some cocktail shots, and some environmental shots of Carrie and the restaurant. We spent a full day on set creating this shoot. We kept things pretty low key with just one assistant and having Carrie create the cocktails and be our model.

White Line Black Line

One of the most common request that I receive on whiskey shoots for for images on black and white of each product. I call these White Line Black Line images. I will typically shoot these images at the same time. The image with the black background has white highlights on the edge of the bottle that run the full length of the bottle. The image on white has full length black shadows on the edges of the bottle. These are actually some of my favorite images to produce. The 12 year old black bottle here is a difficult one to shoot becuase it hsa a gold foil label. We did a good job here of ensuring that you could read all of the gold foil. There is something that I really love about creating emotion in these bottles.

Hero Bottles

Often clients want to mix it up a bit. So in this case we put the bottles soon a cool table with a dark black background so that the bottles kind of pop off the page. The last shot in the above set was a quick grab shot, but I love the way it turned out. Sometimes being flexable on set is when we get our best content.

Pour Me A Drink!

A big part of shoots for whiskey shoots is shooting some cocktails. Or simply whisky neat with ice. There are plenty whiskey snobs out there, but I’m not one of them. Drink what you want the way you want it. There is no wrong way to drink whisky.

Restaurant Photography

Sometimes shooting some whiskey also means shooting some interroirs. In this case we photographed two spaces for the client.

The Face Of The Brand

Every brand has a face. Part of bringing brands to life is telling the stories of the individuals that make them up. We were super glad that we had an amazing location for these portraits.

Wrapping It Up

To sum it all up we created a broad libary of images for our client in just a single day shoot. We could spend a week shooting this type of content and I would love to do it. I can’t wait for the next whiskey shoot. Nick Bumgardner is a Nashville, TN based food and beverage photographer.