2024 12 29
Do not eat. Wilmette, Illinois. October, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Becoming a Top Commercial Food & Beverage Photographer in 2025
A big part of why I decided to make a photo studio happen in the waning days of the covid lockdowns was that prior to covid I’d been getting a lot of food/beverage job inquiries, didn’t have a studio space, and I thought people would be itching to get back out and do shit, make shit, mingle, once the lockdowns were over. While I wasn’t too off in my assessment, where I went wrong was determining what the shit was. I suspected the photo studio would mostly be busy with photo shoots, both of my own and other photographers. While surely, we have done a number of large projects in the space over the last ~three years, it has been more heavily used as an event space and portrait studio than the food and beverage studio I’d imagined. This is largely on me. All of those food/beverage job inquiries I’d been getting sort of organically stopped happening once I had the studio in place, and I didn’t put much effort into changing that. Instead, I focused on the portrait and people work and put lots of effort into hosting events, which I was really enjoying, along with various side projects.
I don’t regret any of this, but I have been wondering if I should put my focus back on the food/beverage work that I’d imagined primarily utilizing the space for. Last week, we wrapped a large food project that I really enjoyed. I did a cookbook shoot earlier in the year which I also really loved and wish I could do more of. Neither of those projects actually happened in the studio I designed to accommodate them, ironically.
As is sometimes the case in life, when you expect something will happen, the world has a funny way of making sure the opposite thing happens. That said, the studio is still an amazing place to do food/beverage photography, and it would be a no brainer for me to put more effort into making that happen next year, be it my own shoots or those of others. After a challenging few years in the commercial photography industry, things are trending better right now and I can only hope it continues.
Additionally, there are already plans to do more high end motion spec work to help land new clients. Of course, at the end of the day, these things are time consuming, challenging, and it will be an ongoing process and big commitment to get where I think we can, if we stick with it. I’m consistently inspired and motivated by the Cleveland shop BurkleHagen, and think we could be a similar resource for brands looking for top tier, beautiful, fresh food/beverage photography and video. The challenge is that I really love pursuing lots of different creative avenues, and this idea would largely require a full-time, all-in effort. I think I have some decisions to make and I think the health of the commercial market will likely help guide me in making them, but that’s a more complicated subject for a different day.
-Clayton
This is one entry in a multi-part series of self-exploration and contemplation-out-loud in advance of the new calendar year. Some of this may happen; none of this may happen.
For the complete list of posts, see 2024 12 25.
