The Art of Photographing a Burger

Double cheeseburger with bacon and soft onions, sweet potato fries behind, on a wooden table by the window at Burgers and Beers, food photography by Gorka Di Capitan

Ask most people and a burger is fast food: bread, meat, cheese, done. Some burger places would disagree. They grind their own beef, smash it on the plancha to order, choose the bun as carefully as the meat and build each burger around one flavour they have spent months getting right.

Two burgers can look alike in a photo and taste nothing alike. That is the whole problem.

The Dome burger with a glazed brioche bun on a dark background, food photography by Gorka Di Capitan

Another burger, or this burger

Photography has the same split. One way to do the job is: here's another burger, shoot it, next. The other is to ask what makes this place different from the other burger joints on the same street, and then find a way to show it.

The second way takes longer, and it starts before I set up a single light. I read the menu and the reviews, I ask the kitchen what they are proudest of, and I watch how the burger is actually built. Sometimes the answer is the crust on the patty. Sometimes it's the cheese, the bacon, or where the beef comes from.

The Dome burger with fries in a silver cup in the Grill Room, food photography by Gorka Di Capitan

Guest with a beer and a burger by the stained glass at The Dome, Edinburgh, food photography by Gorka Di Capitan

Lighting what matters

Once I know what the burger is about, the light follows. If it's the crust, the light comes low and from the side so the char shows its texture. If it's melted cheese, a bit of light from behind makes the edges glow. On the cover of this article it's a double patty with bacon and soft onions, so the light is soft from the window and the focus sits right on the layers, with the room falling away behind.

Double cheeseburger with bacon and dripping cheese sauce at Burgers and Beers, food photography by Gorka Di Capitan

Small things matter more than people expect. A burger starts to sink a few minutes after it leaves the pass, so I work with the kitchen to build it right before I shoot, not ten minutes earlier. The paper, the tray and the fries on the side are chosen too, because they say what kind of place this is before anyone reads the name.

Chef adding the finishing skewer to a line of burgers on the pass at Burgers and Beers, by Gorka Di Capitan

Hand pressing down a dripping triple stack burger with onion rings at Burgers and Beers, food photography by Gorka Di Capitan

Why it's worth the effort

Nobody can taste a photo. All a customer has to go on is what they see, so the picture has to carry what the kitchen put into the food. If a place spends weeks on a burger and the photo looks like any other burger, all that work gets lost on the way to the customer.

Hand lifting the Grill Room burger at The Dome, food photography by Gorka Di Capitan

If you want your menu shot this way, here is how I work with restaurants and bars.

A burger can be fast food. Photographing it well never is.

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