And consistency is king. Camera angle, lighting, food styling all matter. The smallest details go into successful menu shots: bun color, burger patty char, bacon shape, pickle ridges, condiment visibility. With so many details you better have good notes (and boy do we). There are efficiencies learned and applied later down the road. There's no need to re-invent the wheel twice right? Not exactly, but have you seen how many wheels are out there?

The ability to easily duplicate a shot always comes back to good note taking. We can barely remember what we had for dinner last night so without our cheat sheets we'd be wasting valuable time. We mark and measure everything from the camera, surface, lights, light modifiers and fill cards. Not only heights but distances, power ratios and software settings. It's important to us to ensure consistency across the entire library.

Those notes get stored in folders. Then in binders. Then in bigger binders. We love big binders.

Big, bold food shots. We call it crave. Grab the camera and bounce around. Lean into looser food styling, more sauce, drips and melts. Capturing a lot of different angles, quickly. Let's build up a library of shots ready to shine brightly wherever they need to land.

When you pull into a stall at your local Sonic, the menu boards are on the driver's side and across from them on the passenger's side are promotional offerings that are changed seasonally. These displays are a mix of menu items and limited-time offerings that are shown in-situ around a common creative concept.

We love translating a sketched concept into photography. Go ahead and include that '66 Bronco with a removable top... we'll find one.

During the pre-production process we make sure to address a multitude of questions so when shoot day arrives we're focused on execution. If the Bronco's color isn't quite right, we can quickly address that in post.. But if the Bronco is the wrong body style that's a problem. We'll send multiple options to choose from before getting started, and that goes for a lot of stuff: cars, surfaces, backgrounds, sunglasses, totes, beach towels, whatever. We love options and you'll love peace of mind.

Scene Flow™ is what we've coined it. It goes like this: setup a hero scenario and once the action starts we flow through capturing a breadth of images from wide angles to tight and from any angle we can come up with. Shoot it from high, low, shoot past something, shoot through something. Shuffle the talent around and do it again.

Doing this with cameras firing off 10 frames every second (sometimes with two shooters and two cameras), and that impactful gaze, that connection, that I've gotta have it moment in time is found. And it's found in 35 scenarios over 3 days and it didn't take quite as many captures as their number of drink combos.

You read that right. 35 scenarios in 3 days. Time to hustle: structured shot lists but with room to play in the margins. This library deserved a photographic style that was unique for Sonic. When we hear SONIC, we think colorful, optimistic, fun, authentic. Comfortable, surrounded with friends and family.

Those feelings get translated into the choices made for talent, wardrobe, lighting, software color styles and finally polished in post production with our in-house retouchers who work directly with the photographer to ensure the finals are translated as intended.