This is a gentle note to restaurants marketing with AI food photos. This might be hard to believe coming from a professional photographer, but every photo below was shot on my iPhone 13 Pro Max.
And that’s part of why I wanted to share them.
If you own a restaurant and professional food photography isn’t in your budget, please use your phone before turning to AI.
As a customer, I’m much more likely to trust a restaurant when I’m seeing real photos of the food I’m actually going to receive. When a restaurant’s menu or social media is filled with AI-generated food, I immediately start wondering: What does the actual food look like? It makes me feel suspicious. Here are some threads sharing similar feelings.
Again, these photos I took on an outdated iPhone with no editing still look more appetizing than any AI food photo. You don’t need a fancy camera to make your food look appetizing. Good light, a thoughtful composition and a little practice can take you surprisingly far.
Of course, if you own a restaurant or food business in the Triangle area of North Carolina and would like me to help you capture your dishes for your marketing, please reach out!
