I've been doing food photography for over 5 years. It all started with a food blog, Best of the Menu, and has led to working with some amazing clients. As a full-time commercial photographer, I use my 7+ years of marketing experience to help brands curate image libraries that easily handle the rapid need for timely, fresh images for websites, marketing materials, and social media.

My marketing background helps me a lot as a small business owner, and is a value-add for my clients. The ability to help my restaurant clients (or generally any business clients with products) make their websites, social media accounts, and Yelp presence more beautiful means more business for them.

Recently, I collaborated with another marketer on a project to gain insights into the influence of food photography. Fifty people participated in a survey we sent out and confirmed several assumptions:

• Having lower quality food photos means fewer people visit the restaurant or even have interest in engaging on social media

• Having higher quality food photos means more people visiting the restaurant and becoming customers, and more social media engagement

• The photo quality also impacts potential customers' assumptions of cleanliness, authenticity, and being locally-owned vs. a franchise/chain

While there is a lot of additional information we obtained from this survey, the most impactful information could be found when reviewing responses to the two questions below (about two photos of the exact same dish):

I absolutely understand uncertainty about where to spend your hard-earned marketing dollars. Speaking with a consultant, a marketing agency, or even asking trusted frequent customers might be helpful in learning how your current images illustrate your brand - and if that's actually how you want it represented.

Online brand engagement (websites and social platforms) isn't going anywhere, so being cognizant of your photography, web design, strategy, and SEO needs is directly related to business success and growth. Working with trusted collaborators will get you moving in the right direction.

To learn more about how upgrading your photography can help your brand, email me at autumntheodore@gmail.com.