A new cocktail menu needs photos before it launches, and most bars can't close for a day to get them. With a clear plan, a full menu fits into a single session before service, in your own room and your own light.
1. Build the shot list from the menu
Start with the printed menu, not a mood board. For each drink, decide where the photo will be used: the menu itself, the website, social posts, or press. That tells you which drinks need a single clean hero shot and which deserve more.
- Hero: the finished drink, styled, for menus and the website.
- Detail: garnish, texture, ice, condensation.
- Motion: the pour, the shake, the flame. Bartenders' hands make the photos feel alive.
2. Prep before anyone arrives
- Cut garnishes fresh and keep them on ice; citrus dries out fast under lights.
- Have clear ice ready if your drinks use it. Cloudy ice reads as a different drink on camera.
- Polish every glass, then polish it again. Fingerprints show at full size.
- Make a spare of anything that melts, foams or wilts.
3. Group drinks by glass and set
Shooting in menu order wastes time. Instead, group drinks that share glassware or a backdrop, light that setup once, and move through the group. Most bars use two or three setups: the bar top, a window table, and a darker corner for spirit-forward drinks.
4. Use the room's own light
The late-afternoon window light most Phoenix and Scottsdale bars get before service is often the best light of the day. Small, controlled lighting fills in the rest, so the photos still look like your bar at night rather than a white studio.
5. Timing
A typical plan: arrive three to four hours before service, spend the first 30 minutes setting the first look, then work through drinks at a steady pace while the bar team builds the next one. Leave the last half hour for motion shots and the room itself, with staff, so the set feels like a place and not just products.
6. What you get
- Edited images cropped for print menus, the website, and vertical social formats.
- A short set of the room and team for press and hiring pages.
- Files named by drink, so your team can find them later.
Before you book
Send the menu, a few photos of the room at the time you plan to shoot, and the date the menu launches. Reagan will turn that into a shot list and schedule so the evening runs on time.