Mica: [00:00:00] Welcome to the 62nd episode of The Savory Shot, a podcast about the art and soul of working in food photography. Y'all know who I be. I'm your host with the most, Mica McCook. I'm a food photographer based out of Austin, Texas. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the Hot Mess Express. Hope you like it.
Hope you stay. If this is your 62nd time joining us, welcome back boo things! Thanks for showing up. Y'all, I am so excited about today's episode. I'm not going to waste a single second of your time. I'm going to get right into it. Today's guest is super duper special. She went on to Savory Shots website and filled out the intake form.
She said, girl, I got [00:01:00] some bombs to drop. I got some knowledge to share. You have got to put me on the show. Okay, so she sounded a lot more professional than that, but that's like a loose interpretation of what she actually said, but for real y'all, meet Nancy Ingersoll. Nancy is a San Diego based commercial food photographer and lifestyle product photographer who helps food centric businesses with custom visuals to increase brand awareness and social media support to drive businesses.
She helps with more than just food photography y'all. She is also a marketing strategist and brand builder, prop curator, visual storyteller, recipe developer, blog contributor, photo stylist, image composer, content creator, and social media manager, and graphic designer, and so much more. Y'all I was tired just from saying all that like where does she [00:02:00] get the time to sleep?
That's a lot of stuff. But she's focused on food and product photography since 2018. Nancy's client roster includes both restaurants and CPG food brands. She has worked with over 200 brands including large publicly traded companies, but y'all she also loves to support small businesses, small brands, and see them grow.
And she's here on the Savory Shot today to talk about how she helps restaurants decide which dishes to photograph when they are doing a full menu shoot. I know I say this every episode, but y'all, this was my favorite interview. Nancy changed the way I approach my restaurant shoots, how I choose my shot lists. This episode is so great. So I'm going to get right into it. I know y'all got places to [00:03:00] go, things to do, people to see, all that jazz, businesses to run. So grab your coffee, grab a pen and paper, whatever it is that you need to get through this episode, grab it right here and now, and let's start the show.
Nancy, welcome to the show.
Nancy: Thanks for having me.
Mica: So I want to start this off by asking you about your intro to food photography. You've worked in other niches [00:04:00] of photography before finding yourself in food photography. So what initially drew you to food photography?
Nancy: The economy got tighter and phone cameras got better and better. So I needed to branch out of portraits. I didn't want to sacrifice my weekends to do weddings, even though they pay really well. I stumbled my way into product photography. It was a local jeweler who asked me to take some pictures. I may have done her son's portraits at some point.
And then later I expanded my way into food photography and the leftovers don't suck.
Mica: The leftovers don't suck at all. You hit it on the nail about weddings. I did that for about a year and it was a good moneymaker, but it's not just the weekends I had to sacrifice.
I didn't like something happening that I had seconds to fix. Out of all of the [00:05:00] niches that you explored in addition to food photography, which other niche speaks to you the most?
Nancy: Probably just product photography. I really am drawn to anything that's food centric. I've done some vitamins and supplements, which you can argue maybe it's the health sector and maybe it's food photography, but it still feels like food photography to me because I can pair the ingredients with it or the flavor profiles. The place where the vitamins come from in nature, and then it feels more like food photography.
Mica: I'd consider vitamins and supplements food centric. I'm taking chaseberry for my periods. I don't even know what that is, but it is helping me it's been around the world and I like it. But product photography, what I like about product photographies, you can get so creative and [00:06:00] you don't need that much space.
In addition to being a photographer, you do graphic designing, styling, and you're an educator. How do all of these skills help the restaurants that you serve?
Nancy: The graphic designing is a big selling factor for me because I understand empty space. I know there needs to be a place for text to go and the posters point of sale in restaurants. As a stylist, I'm aware when the plate comes out, it needs to be wiped or the salad fluffed or whatever needs to be done to the food, plated differently so that the image will look better as well as composing hero shops with multiple dishes.
I have in my bag, different little risers and blocks that I'll tuck underneath dishes so that I can overlap them more and get more dishes. I like to do things on in the scene and having less empty space. Although I do have some [00:07:00] fillers in my bag too. Some different napkins and utensils to tuck in little places so that it's not all food, but so that it all feels relevant.
As a former educator, I'm also able to guide clients so I can explain to them why certain things will benefit them. Sometimes people will just go in and say, Oh, we need to do this, this, and this and they don't know what's going on, and if I can tell them why I do this, then now I've taught them something, and they're more receptive to my other requests.
Mica: I love that you pointed out about guiding them and holding their hand. What surprises your clients the most whenever they work with you?
Nancy: I have a breadth of knowledge. Just last week, I was in a restaurant shooting for them, and I provided some information on marketing. I told them about Nextdoor.com. I don't know if you have it in your neighborhood, but Nextdoor.com is pretty much everywhere now and restaurants can sign [00:08:00] up for an account and post for free. And then it's like automatically geo fenced and most restaurants don't even know the term geo fencing cause they have to hire an outside marketing person. So I can give them a little bit of an education about that.
They can do something that benefits them and they're like, wow, this photographer came in and gave me this information for free. I want them to succeed because I want them to be around when they need more pictures and then they'll call me back.
Mica: Exactly. Exactly. It's like you succeed. That means future work for me. That means established relationship. I like that you mentioned Nextdoor because most restaurants tend to gravitate towards automatically is Instagram. And they find themselves frustrated that they aren't reaching.
Honestly, the majority of restaurants I go to, I find through Yelp and the photos are what sells me on Yelp. Put your best photos on Yelp. So you mentioned in your intake form that before you [00:09:00] meet with any new client you do your homework.
What kind of homework do you do and how does that prep you for your first consultation with your client?
Nancy: First before you meet with them, you need to cyber stalk them. Scour their website. Google profile, Yelp and social media handles and compare that to their menu. What dishes are missing? Which dishes already have really good photos? Or which dishes photograph really well, but they're all shot from the same angle? Or what dishes might pair well with another when you want to do a grouping together? Or, do you want to juxtapose two things that are contradictory? When we were very first married, my husband and I, we used to be regulars at a restaurant in the neighborhood where we lived and it was fish and chips and Thai food.
And it was a really, lovely little Thai family and they had a fish and chip shop and they made the best curry. So we never even got fish and chips there, but I think that was really their bread and butter just the [00:10:00] juxtaposition of those two things. I did photograph very similarly in Santa Barbara, a little diner that was typical diner breakfast, but it was a Chinese couple and they had great Chinese food as well.
So I think there's a lot of restaurants like that out there where someone wants to share their culture with everyone else, but they've already established something in that particular brick and mortar. If you can put those together in a picture and show the world that. You can get both of these things at this place.
Then now this one picture is telling multiple stories.
Mica: Oh man. And when your clients reach out to you, do they often know what it is that they're seeking from you besides photos? Do most of them have an idea of what they're looking for? Are they rebranding or are they just we need new photos or we've expanded, so we need something more.
Do you find that the homework that you do [00:11:00] on them matches what they're coming to you for? Like their problem areas match what you notice in their website.
Nancy: I, I think that most restaurants don't know what they need, and the restaurant business is hard. They just know they need help. A picture's worth a thousand words, and everyone knows that we eat with our eyes first, I need a photographer, and I want the pictures to be really good. So then, they start Googling.
Searching, however it is they search. Pinteresting or Instagramming or whatever. They find a picture that they think looks good and then they reach out.
Mica: You're like, Hey, help. This is what I need. Recently had a restaurant reach out to me and fortunately didn't work out because their budget was very small and they're a very small restaurant. But they they searched food photographer Google, and they did like a spray and pray method where they just reached out to a bunch of photographers, because I was really confused why they were reaching out to [00:12:00] me.
I thought maybe they're rebranding and want punchy, dramatic photos, which is what I do. Their website had super, natural, soft light, beautiful, but it did not match what I did. So I was really confused. Like they were reaching out to me and I asked them, what appealed and they're like, Oh we Googled you, we Googled food photographer and saw that you had nice pictures.
I thought well, you're not ready to buy, ready to buy because that's, that was your qualification. I have nice photos Have you ever found yourself in a situation like that and how did you handle that?
Nancy: There have been a couple times where people will send me, Oh, here's a Pinterest board I made or a whatever inspiration board that they have. And when it doesn't match mine, I have to say, these are the kind of pictures I have. Because, I've seen your work and it is beautiful, but it is nothing like mine and the client is not right for both of us.
And [00:13:00] that's part of my contract and it should be part of every photographer's contract is that, you have the line in there that they have seen your work and that they understand what your work looks like.
Mica: So there are no surprises.
You mentioned something earlier about being a former educator. Sorry about that. And that your skills as a former educator involves with guiding your clients and, helping them with choosing dishes. So my question is how do you guide your clients in helping them choose the dishes that really matter to them? Or should matter.
Nancy: It all starts with a series of questions. You can't just walk in there ready to shoot. You've already developed a shot list them or in some cases, they might have a shot list for you. But when it's those restaurants that they're like, we just need a photographer, we need to do something then, or maybe they don't even know how many pictures they need or what it is. You know that sometimes they don't know [00:14:00] how many pictures I need or how much money they have. I'm like, I really need one of those two. But here's where we can start. We know that you don't have the budget for a full menu shoot, right?
Let me ask you a bunch of questions. They range from do you have any marketing goals? Often the answer is no, they don't know what they are and that's okay. I can help identify some items that they can push that will help drive their success.
Then they can have a longer conversation about marketing goals. Ask if they have any seasonal items. Oh, if the answer is yes, it's perfect because when that picture's out of season, they might have me back and if it's in season, then maybe it's new on their menu and their customers who have been there before, haven't seen it.
And so we want to be able to showcase that so people know that it looks good and I want to order that. Photographing the seasonal thing helps them because it gets the word out and then it also helps me because when it's out of season there's a new seasonal [00:15:00] item.
I ask if there's specialties or signature dish. You know their best sellers. They probably already thought about what their specialty is and what their best seller is, but the thing they often overlook is what is their biggest profit margin? If they're a business person, they've probably thought about it.
But a lot of restauranteurs aren't business people first. They're in there for the passion of food. They haven't thought about, Oh, I should be pushing this because I make twice the amount of profit as I do on this other dish. If we show people this picture, then they're going to see it and want it.
Maybe I have this picture in my mind and I keep thinking about it and then I finally go to this restaurant and I'm going to order it because I've been thinking about it. I also like to ask if there's any dishes that look different than the traditional version of that dish, because if a person goes in and they say, I want this thing, and then I order this thing and it doesn't look like that, then now I'm surprised.
I'm not really sure if I'm going to like it or not, but if we get people excited [00:16:00] about, Oh, they do this thing so different than everyone else. Then I can show them and we can talk about it. It lends itself to good caption writing and having a picture of it will drive sales on that too. I also ask about texture.
Nancy: Is there anything that has a fancy sauce or a wow factor that can be showcased? We've gone through all of these different questions, and now I've got a sense for where, now we can talk about what dishes to feature.
Mica: That's super in depth. Restaurant owners, chefs don't think about textures in a dish, a sauce is a certain color. I mean, unless they've worked with a photographer, but most of them haven't.
So I imagine that all of that can be overwhelming trying to make those decisions and dwindle it down. Does that often happen with them how do you help them through that?
Nancy: Okay, I asked them six to eight questions depending on the restaurant, and that gives me some [00:17:00] information so I can do, I call it the Give, Get, Give, Get method, but I think it's really just called the Give, Get method, and I think it's a sales strategy for negotiations. The way it works for me is I have all these answers that they've just had and we haven't written down any dishes yet. They probably are thinking in their head.
This one's by signature dish we're going to do that, but i've now opened their eyes up to profit margin textures garnishes colors, so now I have their answers and i'm going to start with whatever, has their biggest visual appeal, right? People eat with their eyes first, and so now they're going to get, I'm going to give them one and what dish is your prettiest dish?
If they can't answer that question, then I need to flip the question quickly so that they're not dwelling on not knowing the answer. I'll say, what dish looks more appetizing than others? Then we add that to the list.
Mica: Yeah, because we're not photographing chili.
Nancy: [00:18:00] Although I did recently. Thanks for
Mica: me of
I'm sorry.
Nancy: Yeah.
Mica: Maybe you can drown it in green. Make the brown a little bit more appetizing. Just chives, chives, chives.
Nancy: Now they've, they've given me an answer. So yes, we have this on our list. We definitely did photograph this other one thing. I've told you this one thing, you've given me an answer to my question.
Now we can reflect back on what was that biggest profit margin if that's not one of the first two. And now here's my second one, so then now we're like ready for our fourth item and I can ask them another question, is there a hidden gem? Are there any new items? Because if it's new people haven't seen it and they need to see it.
So they'll order it. If they can answer that one we can add that one on I just need to quickly spin it to another question because I don't want them to drown in their thoughts and second guess themselves.
Mica: Have a anxiety or identity crisis. They're like, Oh, my [00:19:00] God.
Nancy: And they already just a few minutes ago told me what their showstopper was when I said, what's your prettiest dish? So I can say, okay what's that showstopper again? Describe it to me. And then they tell me, Oh, it has this garnish or this sauce.
I'm like, Oh yes. The contrast of the green with the red is complimentary colors and that's going to be fantastic. Let's do that. Or, Oh, are you using, flat parsley or, curly parsley. I can guide them into being excited about it, and then we add that one on. And so it's going back and forth.
It's this banter of me guiding you, Oh, we need to do this. Now you telling me what you want to do next, even though I asked you the question so that you answered it. And then now we have four on our list, right? Now I need to educate them a little bit more and tell them about variety.
Because of variety, it's the spice of life, right? You can get variety from types of dishes or range of dishes. Is it appetizers and mains and desserts? Or is it shapes? Burritos and tacos and enchiladas. Or is it [00:20:00] categories? Soups and sandwiches and baked things.
We talk about different types of variety. Do you have a preference? How do we want to portray variety in this selection? This is what we have so far. Are they all the same color? Are they all the same shape? Let's get another one in there. Whatever it is that we're doing to make variety, now we identify this fifth item so that we have variety.
We're filling a gap, and now we have a pretty good selection. I can do individual shots and I can pair a couple together and I could do threesomes of the five, I can do all five. I can switch it up and take it from there. Maybe there might even be a modifier where I get extra bonus item, right?
So if there's a salad and you can add a chicken or a salmon on top of it, we'll shoot it naked first and then we'll add the chicken and then we'll swap out the salmon. We don't even have as much food waste here, but now I have three different dishes.
Mica: I love that. In the past when I've worked with restaurants, I've just left a [00:21:00] lot of the choosing to them, or just said, Okay what do you want to photograph and not really walked them through the process. Hearing you talk about the give, get, method for guiding your clients, it sounds like even though you're photographing five to six dishes, I still feel like I'm getting a good view of what kind of restaurant it is and whether I'm going to enjoy the food. You mentioned that you have a dish selection checklist for restaurant owners. How can photographers create a checklist of their own to get ready for a shoot? Or is there a template that you have that you share with other photographers?
Nancy: Yeah, I'm giving it away as a freebie. I'm a big believer in community over competition. I can't go to all the restaurants and I want all the restaurants to succeed because I want them to have competition within each other. So then they strive for [00:22:00] excellence. Because if we only have one choice, they're all going to be the same and bland, so let them all know all my secrets.
And so I have this freebie, and it's good for restaurants or photographers. Either one can use it. It's generic enough that it can be used by almost any kind of restaurant or food truck it doesn't matter whether they're auditing their library of images, social media feed, Google My Business, or what images are they've posted on their Yelp profile.
Using this will help make sure they have a really good mix of several dishes. Some of the items on the checklist, it's. You know, I, I threw things together. And some of them is just a single item. Do you have an item and then others is, does your mix meet this criteria? So some of the check boxes, you have to actually have multiple items in order to check that one off, but it's quite satisfying to check them off. And if you don't check them off, then it gives you a goal to work [00:23:00] for.
Mica: I love when I meet other photographers who believe in community over competition. It boils down to just really wanting to see others succeed in a tough industry. I don't understand people who don't believe in that.
Has this belief always been a part of you since a younger age or is it something you fell into?
Nancy: When I was in my late twenties, I entered the world of high school teaching. I taught high school photography and guided students through the AP portfolio process. I helped them decide on their concentration. And I got to show them that like, you know what, yours can look totally different than yours and they both be awesome. In the world of restaurants, I want to go on vacation and I want there to be an awesome restaurant there needs to be a photographer capturing that restaurant so that I can find it when I go on vacation. That's where I am with the food photography world of community over competition.[00:24:00]
Mica: Oh, man. And for me, it's not even just restaurants. It's, I have a real deep special spot in my soul for local mom and pop restaurants, because those are just places that you can't replicate. So I want to move to your approach to lighting. And when you're working in different restaurant environments, how do you approach how you're going to light the restaurant? And does that impact what dishes you select for the final dish selection?
Nancy: I don't think that it's ever affected my dish selection, but I. I do. I don't, I'm amazed myself. How did I used to shoot before raw pictures? Like, when I used to shoot in JPEG and only use Photoshop? I love so much on the table. Hey photographers, if you're not shooting in RAW and [00:25:00] using Lightroom Classic, man, give it a try.
Lightroom Classic. I still keep forgetting to call it Lightroom Classic because I'm just so used to calling it Lightroom. I have three different versions of Lightroom downloaded in different devices. I'm like, I can't keep up with this.
Yeah, I taught community college photography and one of the 20 something, 20 ish year old kids who was in the class says to me why are we using this old one? Why are we using Lightroom Classic? And I'm like, oh no, no. It's the good one. I promise you.
Mica: Like, you're fine.
Nancy: Yeah,
Mica: You're fine.
Nancy: I had to show him how you could do things in classic that you can't do in non classic I don't know.
Mica: They will have to pry Lightroom Classic from my cold dead fingers. Like I mostly shoot a tether to Capture One these days, but I still have [00:26:00] my my Lightroom Classic catalog, and I take deep pride in how organized it is. So my Lightroom catalog from college was a mess. My teacher shamed me in front of the whole class about how disorganized it was.
Ever since that happened, I was like, I'm not going to get caught slipping. I'm a Virgo. We're known for being organized. He put it up on the big screen and he's like this is not how you do it. After that, I took deep pride in keeping everything pristine, organized, clipped, tagged, all that jazz.
But going back to your approach to lighting, when you go into a restaurant, what's the first thing that usually comes to mind or that you look out for?
Nancy: If I'm shooting a small job. I'm not gonna do a lighting setup. You're not paying me to bring in multiple trips from my car. I can pack quite a bit on my person. I've figured out how to balance my tripod inside my prop bag, and I have my backpack that [00:27:00] holds my camera and lenses and the computer. I've got another bag so I can get in and still be able to fit it to go box in my bag when my going, making my way out.
But, if I'm shooting just natural or available light, I still believe in reflecting. So I do have a reflector when I was teaching both college and high school photography, I made sure everyone knew it's accessible. You can go to the dollar store, buy a roll of foil and break down an old Amazon box.
Now you have yourself a 99 cent reflector, which probably works just as good as my fancy one, but it doesn't fold up into a magic circle that fits in a bag,
Mica: Heck, even getting it to fold in a magic circle is hard enough. My goodness. Could they make that any more difficult?
I love creating [00:28:00] tools with as little as possible. Use what you have with the resources that you have. So another question about the restaurants. How long have you been working with restaurants specifically?
Nancy: I think I actually, I think I had to look on my in my files when I filled your intake form. I want to say it was eight. Is it eight years now?
Mica: So in the eight years, how has restaurant photography evolved? And where do you see it going in the next three years?
Nancy: I think we're still going to be eating with our eyes, right? It can create hunger. Have you ever tried watching the Food Network when you're not hungry and then a half an hour later, you're hungry. The struggle is real. When you're on a diet, you should not be watching cooking shows.
So that's the power of the visual image right there. We all know it. So I don't think that photography is going away. And I [00:29:00] think that restaurants need to concentrate on what they can do and outsource what they can. There's always gonna be, Yelpers and Instagrammers. Whatever platform is popular 40 years from now, that's gonna be needing images too.
Mica: I can only imagine what platform will be popular 40 years from now. It cracks me up that my nieces and nephews try to teach me about social media. I'm like, I'm an elder millennial. I was here when it started. You have nothing to teach me. I teach you. I've noticed some restaurants using AI images on their social media posts.
I don't know if they think they're fooling anyone. They look so obvious. How do you feel about AI images increasingly appearing on social media?
Nancy: Some of them flat out look creepy. Okay. We can just admit that.
Mica: They really do.
Nancy: And if you can do an AI image and get the hands right, you should get some brownie points though, because the AI [00:30:00] hands, those are extra creepy.
Mica: There's like eight of them. That are so creepy.
Nancy: And then also. If you've ever messed around with the AI image generation, if there's a sign in the background or a label, it misspells all the time. You generally spells better than me, but in their images, they always misspell. But that being said, I have used AI to edit some of my pictures, but I keep the integrity of it.
Mica: It's fine to do patches here and there for editing but if you're photographing it. AI is only proving the importance of photographers because of the prompt generator. As long as I still have a creative vision, it doesn't matter what this restaurant owner puts in. They're hiring me for my creative vision my creative skill. I'm worried about the people who refuse to use it.
But those photos do look creepy.
Nancy: Yeah. But there's a saying though, that AI is not going to take anyone's job. A person who can use AI [00:31:00] better than you can might take your job. AI is saving restaurants money in the sense that if I need to retouch something. Do you remember in the days of the clone stamp where you're hitting, option touch, click a million times to get that round bowl with just that chili that I mentioned that I just recently shot in December. It was in a paper bowl.
Paper you can't wipe off like a real bowl. And so I just drew a little circle around it, and then I told AI to clean up the edge, and it was a perfectly patched circle. The curves, those were the worst for clone stamping.
Mica: It's certainly a time saver.
Nancy: The kitchen didn't have to replay it. I didn't have to wait for it. I didn't have to spend a million clicks to get that curve cleaned up, and now the image is fixed. I've also used it to add some seasonal touches to some pictures for a restaurant that I do their social media. Santa Claus hands holding the tray of tacos, [00:32:00] as opposed to the human hands that were holding the tray of tacos.
Mica: Love that so much.
Nancy: Yeah, and it's still my tray of tacos. I, it's my photograph, right? So adding little things I think is okay. I don't know, is it like in movies, there were a certain percentage of the script has to match the actual true story for it to be based on a true story. There's gotta be some percentage of photos that, but I don't know what that is.
Mica: You hit it on the nail about how it's the tacos. Being authentic. The food they're looking at is the food they'll see at a restaurant. With restaurants creating AI images, they run a very dangerous line. A customer might say, this is what I saw in the photo, and this looks nothing like what you delivered.
And then they have to say, Oh, well, we created that in AI. In a couple of years, it's going to be as expected as having filters on your photos. I want to finish the interview with two questions. What [00:33:00] advice would you give to someone new to the food photography world who wants to work with restaurants. What's the best approach to get into that industry?
Nancy: Start with shooting what you like, right? People are gonna find your work and they're gonna resonate like, oh, that looks like my restaurant. So if you're shooting for high end, don't be posting pictures of tacos and burritos. I'm in Southern California.
I love a taco.
Mica: And you know us Texans love tacos too.
Nancy: So if you're good with shooting from a truck, I mean, I, I shoot for a truck regularly and they're permanently parked outside a brewery, which is my husband's favorite brewery. So it works out well for us. So shoot what you like, but don't shoot without a signed contract.
Mica: Yes. Yes to all of that. Yes. Signed contract.
Nancy: Yeah get one that's from your state, who do generic contracts that you can buy a template from. [00:34:00] I will admit that my first contract, I hodgepodge from, I pulled this line from this one. Oh, this sounds like a good clause. I'm going to have that in there.
And then I finally ponied up for a real one. At least have something, and if you can't afford having someone do one totally for you, find a real lawyer in your state you can buy the template from that's specifically for photography.
And there are even organizations that will do it for free, like they're creative based. That do it for free or for very low cost. But I like what you said about finding an actual lawyer, draft a contract for you that you can use repeatedly just so you know that you're protected and your work is protected.
My second little pearl of wisdom for photographer starting out is don't be afraid to send an ugly dish back to the kitchen or offer to replate it because if it doesn't look good, a fresh garnish or retossing a salad can really make a [00:35:00] difference in what you can capture. But if it's ugly, you're not going to, you're going to have an ugly picture.
Nancy: And
Mica: Yeah. There's no editing that's gonna save that
Nancy: Yeah be aware of the whole environment is another little pearl for me. A second background that matches the vibe of the restaurant or the color story of the brand. One of the places that I'm on retainer for, so I shoot for them regularly. These yellow chairs.
Not all of the chairs are yellow. The other ones are teal, but I never shoot on them because their brand color, yellow is, the same as chair. They have three different tabletops, but there's one in particular that I like better than the other two. So I always shoot at the same table because I like it's surface better.
And then I will also pull one of the yellow chairs over and take that dish and I will shoot it on that table that I like. Then I will move over and I will put it on that chair and do a top down and a 45. With that yellow background. It looks a regular background when you don't see the edge of the chair Sometimes there might be a [00:36:00] feature wall next to the entrance and if it's the brand's color or vibe hopefully it's vibing, right?
So shoot the same dish on multiple backgrounds that all match with the vibe. If your contract was for 20 images and you show them more images then they're going to want to opt into the extras too.
Mica: Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure.
Nancy: The one thing that, that I always forget to do, which. I know, here's me preaching to myself, take some behind the scenes pictures.
Mica: Oh, that's a big one. Yes.
Nancy: I have an Apple watch and I have an iPhone, I can use that watch as a remote and I should be taking a picture of myself all the time, but I very rarely remember to.
Mica: Oh, gosh. Cause you're in the middle of a shoot and you just get. I was telling my husband this, I said, you don't understand. The photographer's brain is real. You show up and you hold your camera and you're like shaking it like a monkey.
Like you've never seen the thing before. I've [00:37:00] spent years crafting, but as soon as the shoot starts, it's like all logic leaves the door. That's why your assistant is wonderful. That's why having a team behind you is great. So that he can think for you because your brain disappears.
Nancy: Yes, like your brain disappears on where you put your lens cap, so if you can always put it in the same spot, like the side pocket of my camera bag or rear left pocket, but I'm not always wearing rear left pocket, so that didn't work. So I go with the side pocket of the camera bag because it's always with me.
Otherwise, I don't know. I spent my first three years of photographing looking for my lens cap at the end of every job.
The final question that I have for you is what do you hope that listeners gain from today's episode?
I think just the whole point of this is so that everyone can be successful, right? I want restaurants to succeed, and we can all share our wisdom with each other. If we can all [00:38:00] come up with a great shot list, and if someone else comes up with some great things that they want to share with me, I'm all ears, they can DM me on Instagram or there's a contact form on a website. When you're working with smaller brands, they're not usually ready to commit to a full menu shoot.
Nancy: Hopefully I've broken down some questions to ask and how to guide them and, and that puts them at more comfortable level to trust you with their pictures.
Mica: Now I know I said I had one last question and I asked that question, but here's the really last question. What keeps you working with restaurants after eight years?
Nancy: The leftovers don't hurt, but no, in reality, I'm a foodie. I see restaurants making things that I wouldn't make at home and I get to appreciate it. Cooking is a passion. They're sharing in most cases, their culture. By sharing everyone's culture with each other, we have learned more about the people.
If we know about the [00:39:00] people, then we can appreciate the people.
Mica: I love that.
Nancy: It's a way, it's a form of love.
Mica: It's a form of love. Yes. Yes. Thank you. First of all, for coming on the show. I want to get my hands on that checklist.
I feel like that would change so much for how I approach working with restaurants. Where can the listeners follow you, find you, get their hands on the checklist, the dish selection checklist. Where can we find you?
Nancy: I'm on Instagram as The Creative Resource and my website is nancyingersoll.com. That's I N G E R S O L L for my last name. And. I have the checklist was should be in the show notes too. Yeah.
Mica: Yes.
Nancy: Okay. Yeah, you can grab it off. Yeah. And the show notes. You can also, I'm going to add it to my link tree too.
So you should be able to pull it off my Instagram as [00:40:00] well. If you send me a message in the contact me form on my website, I can also send you a link to it. One, one reason why I came up with that checklist was when I started doing social media management for a restaurant like I needed to see what the mix was that I needed for their library.
I inherited this library of images. It was just this random photo dump. And then I augmented that with some of my own photos that I took just on a mad shoot a fest. And then I had to be like, okay, wait, what do I need? And so I developed that list and I'm here to share it.
Mica: I keep telling you this last question, last question, and then something pops up in my mind. So I'm so sorry, but where did the name, The Creative Resource, what's the story behind that?
Nancy: I was a little bit lost at first. All I knew is that I was a creative, right? I taught high school [00:41:00] photography and I also did graphic design and I was doing freelance photography and freelance graphic design. Everything I did was creative and I was a resource for people.
Someone asked, what should I call myself? To say that I'm a graphic designer a photographer and a this and a that. That's too much of a mouthful. I need one all encompassing catchphrase. Then someone said you're a creative resource.
Oh no, I'm the creative resource.
Mica: I love that so much. I love that so much. And it was so fitting for all of the skills that you bring to the table. Okay, that really was the last question. Nancy, thank you again so much for coming on the show for signing up and filling out the guest intake form like really, I thank you so much for being here on The Savory Shot.
Nancy: It was, and you know, I love Savory Shot, and I quite frankly, I was a little bit [00:42:00] like sad when there was that gap there at the end of the year, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I need to fill out this guest intake form because I need something to listen to when I walk to the dog.
Mica: I am really excited that I'm back and ready to charge forward. I missed you guys. So I'm glad to be back.
Nancy: Oh, we are glad you're back.
Mica: Yay! Yay! Oh my gosh.
[00:43:00]