Monterey Food Photography photo shoot for Grubhub at Lighthouse Bistro
I had not done a shoot for Grubhub in a very long time, so when the opportunity came up to go to Lighthouse Bistro in New Monterey, I took it. These are basic food shoots, following the guidelines provided using just natural window light with a bit of reflector bounce and shooting ten meals plus a hero shot in less than an hour! This is a new restaurant that just opened up in May 2025 with a friendly staff that was fun to work win in making these shots. I got to take both the pasta dish and the hummus home too!
Adding handheld “from the ground” video services in Albuquerque
I am always looking to improve and increase the imaging services I can offer clients here in Albuquerque, New Mexico and now I am pleased to offer “handheld video” in addition to the drone aerial video I have been offering for years. You may recall the drone video shoot I did for County Line Restaurant last summer (check it out here). At the time I did not have the gear nor the skills to make video inside the restaurant for the client. I kept it in mind though and when DJI released the new RS 3 Mini gimbal, I decided this is my time to start to offer branding video from the ground. Thank you to the team at County Line for this opportunity and doing a great job getting the restaurant prepped!
Commercial Photography for restaurant branding and marketing in ABQ
County Line Restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico basically sits atop the city nestled right up against the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. It made for a great setting as I visited the restaurant a different times over two days to make interior and exterior photos as well as a 4K drone video showing the restaurant in its stunning setting. I used a variety of shooting techniques to get the interior shots, likewise for the exterior shots. As a professional commercial photographer, I am not set on one particular style of shooting, but rather choose the best for the shooting environment that will get the best results for the client. So for the interiors, sometimes I used off camera lighting, sometimes HDR shots, and sometimes a single exposure worked best. It was great working with the team at County Line Restaurant to make this wide ranging series of dynamic visual content for their branding, marketing, and social media.
Professional restaurant interior photography featuring furniture
Sometimes who you might think is my client here at Jason Collin Photography, is not actually the client. Here you see commercial interior photos of the new restaurant M’Tucci’s Twenty-Five in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So naturally you would think the restaurant hired me to make photos to help promote their opening. However, the client was the company that makes the furniture used in the restaurant. Puzzled restaurant employees were wondering why I was focused on the tables and chairs and did not care about getting any logos or branding in the shots! I like being given creative freedom to go to a location and photograph a client’s product “in the wild” as best as I can given only a semi-controlled environment as some customers were coming into the restaurant and I had to work fast at times and shoot from selective angles.
Back on a professional food photography assignment in Albuquerque, New Mexico for Grubhub this time at Asahi Express. This is a new restaurant that opened up just before Covid-19 shut down, so I was glad to be able to make photos for them to help them jumpstart their business now that restaurants are allowed to be open at 50% capacity. As per Grubhub guidelines I shot with only natural, available light. I used a reflector to add what pop I could to the ambient florescent lighting and the minimal light that was coming through the opaque windows. Fortunately, the menu items themselves held a lot of interest. If you are looking for good bibimbap and want to support a new business in ABQ, check out Asahi Express.
ezCater is my latest food photography client here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are sending me to restaurants all over the city that provide catered food to make about 20 photos of their offerings. The final shot, the "hero shot," as it is called, is getting as many of those potentially 20 dishes in the camera frame as possible. If I got all of them in, every dish would look really small, not to mention there often is not space to make a shot like that as I shoot right in the regular customer area of the restaurant. So I ask the restaurant owner which dishes are the ones she/he wants featured, then focus on getting as many of those as possible in the shot, like the one you see above.
Last week I began a commercial photography project for Bayprint documenting the printing, installing and displaying of a particular type of print made especially for windows. When viewed from outside you see a colorful image of a Cirque du Soleil performer. From inside, it appears as just a light gray shade. These prints were installed on Cassis, a downtown St. Petersburgrestaurant right on Beach Drive, a heavy foot traffic location. As you can see, they add quite a bit of color to the restaurant's facade!
These comparison before and after shots were taken a few days apart, but I went back at the same time of day to match the light and shadows as much as possible. I looked at the before photo on my iPhone 5 to help me line up the after shot in the same framing.
On yet another day I went to Cassis to photograph the installation process. Since I am a person who has trouble putting a small sticker on a car window in any kind of alignment, I had a lot of respect for the guys doing the install working with such large prints. As most pros do, they made it look easy!
