>There’s a new trend we’ve noticed in shoots the last 6 months or so: innkeepers wanting great food shots. Even properties where food is not really a “big deal” seem to now want to focus more on this aspect of their business. This new trend delights us because we’ve always felt that food pictures really help the “sell the experience” and speak volumes about an inn. Believe it or not, when we first entered the hospitality business 10 or so years ago it was rare to see a “breakfast” page on an bed and breakfast website. Kind of funny when you think it is “Bed and BREAKFAST”!
This new-found interest coincides with the general fascination with food and cooking, thanks in part to the success of pop culture phenomena like celebrity chefs, The Food Network and Top Chef. No longer are just the elite interested in gourmet cooking; it’s trickled down to all of us.
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| At Chambered Nautilus B and B |
When a client asks us for food shots, usually we begin with a series of questions to get an idea of what type of shots they are looking for. You can take an more abstract “fantasy” approach” (see the soup from L’Auberge Provencale) or show food being prepped (see Chambered Nautilus shots), or the “real” approach. If a property offers breakfast served in-room, we like to show it “in context”, thereby selling the food as well as the great service. Sometimes you really want to get a potential guest’s mouth to water about the food in particular, so you get really close (the Swann House fruit or the Abbeymoore B and B omelet). These days, lots of folks (especially ME!) care where the food comes from. I love the Brampton Inn shot, showing Danielle, the innkeeper, harvesting blackberries from their garden. Of all the hundreds of properties we’ve focused on, no one is more true to THE COOKIE than Danielle and her team (Hi Carol!) at Brampton. The beautiful variety of totally homemade cookies we shot this late summer was not just prepared for the shoot–it was just another day at the inn, photographed exactly how I saw it in their guest den. Yum.
Here are a few shots from the last 3 months….
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| Innkeeper harvesting blackberries from garden, Brampton Inn, Chestertown, MD |
