Cocktail bars
The drink lasts four minutes. The post lasts a year.
A cocktail is the most photogenic thing you make and the hardest to photograph, because your room is dark by design.
Sized and staged for Instagram · TikTok · Google Business Profile
Bars have a content problem that restaurants do not. A menu changes seasonally; a bar is expected to post several times a week, and the thing being posted melts in four minutes.
The drink itself is ideal subject matter — glass, ice, colour, garnish. But the room it was made in is deliberately dim, lit in amber, and full of bottles. Every photograph comes out either grainy and orange or blown out by a phone flash, which is worse.
Why your photos are costing you sales
Phone flash is the specific enemy here. It flattens the drink, kills the backlight through the glass, throws a hard shadow on the bar and turns a considered cocktail into evidence.
Without it you get motion blur, because there is not enough light, and a drink with condensation running down it does not wait for a long exposure.
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
Glassware, garnish, ice and the colour of the liquid are preserved from your photograph. A drink that comes back with a different garnish is a different drink, and the person who ordered it because of your post will notice.
The neon and spotlight scenes give you the dark, saturated look bars actually want, without needing the room to cooperate.
- No flash, and no grainy amber phone photos
- Neon and spotlight looks that suit a bar rather than a kitchen
- Garnish, ice and glassware preserved exactly as served
- Vertical crops for stories and TikTok from the same shot
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
- My bar is too dark to photograph in. Does that matter?
- Get the drink in focus and reasonably exposed — near the till light or the back bar is usually enough. The scene supplies the atmosphere afterwards.
- Will the garnish stay the same?
- Yes. Garnish, glass and ice are part of the object and preserved, which matters because the garnish is often what makes the drink recognisable.
- Can I photograph a flight or several drinks together?
- Photograph them together and they are staged as one arrangement.
- How fast is it? The drink is melting.
- The photograph is the only part that has to happen at the bar. Everything after it happens whenever you have a minute, from the photo you already took.
Written for your trade
Practical pieces about photographing what you sell, rather than general advice about cameras.
A week of content from one service
Bars are expected to post constantly and staffed by people working nights. The only sustainable answer is to capture in bulk and publish slowly.
3 minute read
Ice, condensation and garnish: the details that date a photo
A clear block of ice, a cold glass beading with condensation and a fresh twist are the three things that say this drink was made properly.
4 minute read
Shooting a dark bar without a flash
The room is lit at the level people want to drink in. Your phone wants a hundred times more light, and the flash destroys everything the room was built for.
4 minute read
Also sells like you
The drink lasts four minutes. The post lasts a year.
Start with 3 free images. No card, no account.
Try it free