BottleRock | The Best Food Truck Ever | Napa
As a commercial food photographer, I’m mostly in a studio or restaurant. But I finally got to shoot at a music festival. And shooting at BottleRock for The Best Food Truck Ever certainly was the perfect starter.
Event Photography Goals for Best Food Truck Ever
My main goal as the photographer was to showcase the food truck’s personality, service, food, and customer interactions.
I like making a visual creative brief when I work with a new client. This helps guide me when shooting and editing. Below is the one I made for the Best Food Truck Ever.
Vibrant, fun, spunky, and Americana
I wanted to emphasize pink, the Best Food Truck Ever’s main color. And there was plenty of pink inspiration around at BottleRock.
How to get pictures of people eating…
More of my clients are requesting candid customer photos. And I struggled to get shots I was satisfied with.
When people see a camera, they first duck out of the way. They automatically assume they are not the subject.
When they realize they are the subject, they usually hunch over to obscure themselves eating.
When I began asking for permission to take their photos, the images came out much better. I thought asking would take away the candid quality of the images. But instead, it made customers feel more at ease and less likely to hide.
You still get people who want to pose, and that’s okay too. All the images will come out better.
Difficulties of Working at a Festival
Security at events gets more strict every year because of mass shooters. While preparing for the shoot, I looked up security protocol and was surprised that EVERYONE had to follow the same rules.
My camera and flash had to be carried on my neck the whole time because no bag would fit the size requirements. I chose to use my camera’s battery grip for the first time, which allows for extended battery use.
I had to figure out a way to bring everything else I needed in a small, one-zipper fanny pack.
This included
- 3 extra camera batteries
- 2 additional SD cards
- AA batteries for my flash
- Sunscreen
- Driver’s license and credit cards
Finally, I bought an iPhone neck lanyard so I could easily and quickly switch from my camera to my phone to film videos for Instagram stories and reels.
Needless to say, my neck and shoulders were extremely sore the next day as well as sunburnt. There weren’t many places I felt comfortable setting my camera down, so I applied sunscreen with everything still hanging from my neck.
And going to the bathroom was an EXTREMELY difficult undertaking.
But overall, it was a fun and energizing experience.
