Coffee and cold drinks
Crema lasts ninety seconds and latte art lasts less
Drinks are the most time-critical thing any kitchen photographs, and the one most often shot in the worst light in the building.
Sized and staged for Instagram · Wolt · efood
A drink changes faster than any plate. Crema breaks, foam settles, latte art blurs, ice clouds and then dilutes, condensation runs down a cold glass and pools. The window in which the drink looks like the drink is measured in seconds, and it closes while somebody is finding a clear bit of counter.
Cafés are also lit for atmosphere rather than for photography — warm, low, often from behind the bar — which is the exact opposite of what a drink needs. Coffee under a warm bulb loses the distinction between espresso and americano; a cold brew goes muddy; anything with milk goes yellow.
And the container is usually glass or ceramic with a shine, which means every light in the room is in the photograph.
Why your photos are costing you sales
For a roaster selling beans online the problem is different and worse: the product is a bag, and a bag is a rectangle. The coffee itself never appears, so the photograph has to carry the brand entirely — which is why so many roaster listings are a bag on a white background doing nothing at all.
For a café the cost is that the drink you are best at is the one hardest to show. Anybody can photograph a slice of cake. The flat white that took two years to learn is a white circle in a cup.
The scenes that suit your work
A handful chosen for what you sell, out of the full library.
It has to still be your item
Pull the shot, photograph it immediately, and do not wait for the light — the light is what gets replaced and the crema is not. One usable frame taken in ten seconds beats a considered one taken in two minutes, because by then it is a different drink.
The café table places a cup where somebody is imagining drinking it, which does more for a roaster than another bag on white. Steam is the strongest thing a hot drink can have. And for anything dark, glossy or glass, the black studio is the scene that gives the surface something worth reflecting instead of the ceiling.
- Crema and foam still intact, because the light came later
- Milk that is white rather than yellow
- A bag of beans placed somewhere, not floating on white
- No ceiling lights reflected in the glass
Three steps, about a minute
01
Upload your photos
Two or three angles on a phone is plenty. We cut the background automatically.
02
Pick your scenes
Tick as many as you like from 56 staged settings, or describe your own.
03
Get your shots
They arrive together in your gallery, ready to download for a listing or a post.
Questions people ask before they sign up
- Can it fix latte art that has already blurred?
- No. It restages the drink you photographed, and a blurred pour stays blurred. Shoot it fast; that part is on the barista, not the camera.
- Iced drinks?
- Shoot before the ice clouds. Condensation is reproduced, which usually helps — a cold glass with beads on it reads as cold.
- I sell beans, not drinks.
- Then the bag is your product and the café table is the scene that gives it a context. A brewed cup beside the bag is the other honest option, and it needs both in the photograph you send.
Crema lasts ninety seconds and latte art lasts less
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