Food shot list
A food photography shot list template
Four groups ordered around how long a plated dish lasts: the set is built on a stand-in, and the real plate is photographed in the few minutes it holds. A duration on every row, and the pour that delivers five seconds off half an hour.
12 shots in 4 groups, 9 of them marked must-have, 3h 24m of shooting before you add travel, meals and the set-up at either end. Every column on it is explained in the shot list template.
The food sets the order
Every other kind of studio day is sequenced by lighting. A food day is sequenced by the food: the set is built and tested on a stand-in, the real plate arrives, and the frames that matter happen in the few minutes before it dulls, wilts, sets or melts.
So the groups run in the order of what can wait. Ingredients and prep are photographed while the kitchen is still working, because none of it is perishable in the same way. The hero dishes are next and are worked per dish rather than per angle. The table scene is last and is the group that needs planning hardest, because by then most of what should be on the table has already been photographed and eaten.
Build the set before the food is cooked
The long durations in the list below are set-up rows, and they sit at the top of each group. A stand-in plate — the same shape, the wrong contents — is what those minutes are spent on, so that when the real dish lands the only thing left to do is put it down and photograph it.
The list
A — Ingredients and prep3 shots · 45m
Shot while the kitchen is still cooking, on the set that is already lit. Nothing here is time-critical, which is exactly why it goes first.
| Ref | Shot | Size | Angle | Priority | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A 1 | Raw ingredients laid outSquare · Tags: IngredientsAlso the frame that proves the light before anything cooked arrives on set. | WS | Overhead / flat lay | Must-have | 20m |
| A 2 | Hands working: chopping, kneading, pouringLandscape · Tags: Ingredients, Social | MCU | High | Must-have | 15m |
| A 3 | One ingredient, isolatedPortrait · Tags: Ingredients | DET | Eye level | Nice-to-have | 10m |
B — Hero dishes4 shots · 59m
The group everything else is arranged around. Each dish is photographed the minute it lands, so the rows below run per dish rather than per angle.
| Ref | Shot | Size | Angle | Priority | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B 4 | Hero dish, three-quarter, on window lightPortrait · Tags: Hero, MenuBuilt and tested on a stand-in plate before the real one is cooked. The real one gets minutes, not the whole set-up. | MS | Eye level | Must-have | 25m |
| B 5 | The same dish, overheadSquare · Tags: Hero, Menu | MS | Overhead / flat lay | Must-have | 12m |
| B 6 | Cutlery in, first portion takenLandscape · Tags: HeroOne attempt per plate. Everything else about the dish is photographed before this row. | MCU | Eye level | Must-have | 12m |
| B 7 | Texture, steam, crumb or meltLandscape · Tags: Detail | ECU | Low | Nice-to-have | 10m |
C — Pour and action2 shots · 45m
The set stays where it is and the light is turned up: a fast shutter and a high frame rate both want more of it than a plated dish does.
| Ref | Shot | Size | Angle | Priority | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C 8 | Sauce or syrup poured over the dishPortrait · Locked off · 120 fps · Mute · 5s · Tags: SocialFive delivered seconds at 120 frames a second, and half an hour of pouring to get them. | MCU | Eye level | Must-have | 30m |
| C 9 | The pour, as a still, at the moment of contactPortrait · Tags: Hero, SocialShot off the same set-up as the clip above, which is the reason the two sit in one group. | CU | Eye level | Must-have | 15m |
D — Table scene3 shots · 55m
Last, because it needs every dish on the table at once and most of them have already been photographed and eaten by now. Cook doubles or keep the best plate back.
| Ref | Shot | Size | Angle | Priority | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D 10 | Full table dressed, overheadLandscape · Tags: Editorial | WS | Overhead / flat lay | Must-have | 30m |
| D 11 | Table at eye level, hands and glassesLandscape · Tags: Editorial, Social | MWS | Eye level | Must-have | 15m |
| D 12 | After the meal, plates half clearedLandscape · Tags: Editorial | MS | High | Nice-to-have | 10m |
The letters are the groups’ positions and the numbers run down the whole list, so moving a group re-letters everything under it. The durations are round starting numbers rather than measurements — replace them with your own after the first shoot. How long a photoshoot takes goes through where a real number comes from.
A clip and a still off one set-up
The pour group holds one clip and one photograph, and they share a set-up. The clip is five delivered seconds at 120 frames a second; the photograph is the same pour caught at the moment of contact. The clip row is estimated at thirty minutes and the photograph at fifteen, off the one set-up they share, and only one of them delivers a video file.
That is why a delivered length and an estimated duration are separate columns. Latentshoot schedules from the estimate, in whole minutes, because the running order measures how long the crew is standing there. Both go on the same list as everything else.
Where a food day actually over-runs
Not on the photography. It over-runs waiting for the kitchen, and the way to see that coming is to have written a duration next to every row and compared the total to the hours you have. How long a photoshoot takes goes through where the hidden hours go on other kinds of day, and on-set mode records what each group really took so the next brief is estimated from your own kitchen rather than from a round number.
If the day is being shot on daylight rather than on continuous light, the window is worth knowing before you agree a call time. The schedule lays the running order against the day’s light for the location and the date.
Sizes, angles, priorities and the four fields a clip carries are the shot list’s own columns rather than a form invented for this page. Put the rows above into Latentshoot and the running order, the daylight band, the gear list and the call sheet are worked out from them.
Start this list in LatentshootFrequently asked
How many dishes can be photographed in a food shoot day?
Count the set-ups rather than the dishes. Several dishes photographed on one built surface, with a stand-in used to light it, move quickly; several dishes each wanting their own surface, props and light do not. The kitchen’s pace is usually the binding constraint rather than the camera’s.
What should be photographed first on a food shoot?
Whatever does not perish. Raw ingredients, hands working and the empty dressed surface can all be photographed while the kitchen is still cooking, and doing them first means the set is lit and tested by the time the first plate arrives.
Should the table scene be shot at the start or the end of the day?
At the end, but planned from the start, because it needs every dish on the table at once and most of them have already been photographed by then. Either cook doubles or hold one plate of each back, and put that on the list rather than leaving it to be remembered.
How do I put a pour or a steam clip on a food shot list?
As a row on the same list, marked as motion, carrying what the camera does, the frame rate, whether sound is being recorded and how long the delivered clip runs in seconds. The estimated duration beside it stays in minutes and is what the running order is built from — five seconds at 120 frames a second is still half an hour of pouring.
No card. Photographs and clips go on one list, and the running order is worked out from it on every plan.