Food photography course · Beirut · Arabic & English

Food 101

Q: When does it start?

Dates are TBA . Message me to go on the list — you will get the dates before this page does, and the list gets first refusal on the ten seats. If you already know which days of the week suit you, tell me then. Ten people's availability is a schedule.

Commercial food photography, taught by someone who shoots it for a living.

You finish with six portfolio images and the knowledge to price the job. Eight live sessions, ten seats. Next group dates: TBA.

Get on the list See the eight sessions

8 sessions · 90 minutes 4 weeks · Google Meet 10 seats $200

The honest version

You cannot get hired without work to show. You cannot get work to show without being hired.

Everybody who wants to shoot food commercially gets stuck in the same loop. A restaurant wants to see food photography before they hire you. You have no food photography, because nobody has hired you.

Meanwhile there is no shortage of information. There are ten thousand videos explaining backlight. You have probably watched a hundred of them, and your photographs still look like a menu board.

You do not have a knowledge problem. You have a portfolio problem, and a pricing problem.

So this course breaks the loop from both ends. Every week you shoot one portfolio piece, briefed the way a client would brief it — deliverable, format, constraints, deadline. Six weeks, six pieces, reviewed as a body of work. And in the final session you learn what to charge for them.

Eight sessions. Six portfolio pieces.

Ninety minutes each, twice a week, over four weeks. Every session opens with your work from the last one on screen and closes with a brief for the next.

Week 1 — Light

Session 1

How food is actually lit

Food is lit from behind and the side, almost never from the front. Why front light kills texture — and texture is appetite. Then five professional images on screen and you call out where the light was.

Session 2

The one-light setup

One window, a reflector and a piece of black card beat most expensive kit. Negative fill is the most underused tool in food photography and the one that makes images look expensive.

Portfolio

Pieces 1 & 2

One dish backlit for texture. Then the same dish re-shot with controlled fill, delivered side by side — your first before-and-after proof that you know what you changed and why.

Week 2 — The frame

Session 3

Angles and lenses

The food tells you the angle — you read it, you don't choose it. Overhead, 45° and straight-on hero, why food is shot long, and shooting one setup so the client gets vertical, horizontal and square.

Session 4

Styling, props and the clock

The photograph is built before the camera comes out. Surfaces, props that earn their place, room for the client's text — and the freshness clock. Ice cream, foam and steam die in ninety seconds.

Portfolio

Pieces 3 & 4

One dish at three angles, and you defend your hero. Then a styled scene with a clear hero and one supporting element — nothing in frame that isn't helping.

Week 3 — Craft

Session 5

Shooting like a professional

Commercial work is a process, not a moment. Tethering, working to a written shot list, where to place focus on a plate, and why twelve images for a client have to look like siblings.

Session 6

Motion, pours and the money shots

The things that move are what brands pay most for. The pour, the drip, the steam, the cheese pull. How to build a rig that gives you twenty attempts instead of one lucky frame.

Portfolio

Pieces 5 & 6

Three images that clearly belong together — consistency is the grade, not individual beauty. Then one motion frame: liquid, steam or fall.

Week 4 — Delivery and business

Session 7

Post-processing for food

Food retouching is about consistency and appetite, not filters. Colour accuracy, because the client's product has to look like their product. Cleanup, a look applied across a set, and exporting properly.

Session 8

The business of shooting food

Day rates versus per-image. Usage rights, which most photographers here give away for free without knowing it. Reading a brief, quoting, and approaching brands with no portfolio yet.

Your body of work

Six pieces reviewed together, not one at a time — because that is how a client will look at them. Then an honest map of what you still cannot do, and where it is taught.

Four of my own frames, and the session each one belongs to. Every technique in this course is something I use on paid work.

Why this one costs four times the intro course

Because of Session 8, mostly.

Every food photography tutorial on the internet teaches light and styling. Almost none of them teach the business — how to read a brief, build a shot list, price a day, handle usage rights, and approach a brand when you have nothing to show yet. That knowledge is genuinely scarce, and it is the entire difference between a hobby and a job.

Learning to make the picture is half of it. Learning what the picture is worth is the half nobody teaches.

And because it is twice the hours of the intro course, at ten seats instead of twenty — which means when your work goes on screen, there is time to actually take it apart.

If you want a hobby course, take OFF AUTO and enjoy it. This one is for people who intend to charge.

What you leave with

Six portfolio images, briefed and finished like client work
A repeatable one-light setup that costs almost nothing
A shot list you can hand a client before you quote
A day rate you can defend, and a licence you don't give away
The three angles, and the judgement to pick between them
An honest read on what you still cannot do yet

Why learn it from me

I shoot food and drink commercially in Beirut, for premium brands, this week and next week. Not as a side interest — it is the job. Photography where the light has to be right the first time, the product has to look like the product, and a client is waiting on the other side of it.

But I never went to photography school. I started as a hobbyist shooting landscapes, moved into product, then food, and ended up in tabletop. All of it came from experimenting: shoot, fail, work out why, shoot again. Ten years of that.

Everything in this course is something I have actually been paid to do, and got wrong first.

That matters more than it sounds. I am not teaching you a technique I read about — I am teaching you the version that survives a real shoot, with the compromises still attached. What the brief said, what went wrong, what the client changed their mind about, and what I would do differently now.

Nobody teaching food photography from a syllabus can give you that. It is worth more than any single technique in the eight sessions.

How the 90 minutes runs

15 min — critique of last session's portfolio piece
35 min — the craft of the session
20 min — live demo, tethered, decisions narrated
15 min — this week's brief, written like a client's
5 min — questions

The critique block is fifteen minutes, every session, no exceptions. At ten seats that is real airtime — and it is the part you are actually paying for.

Who this is actually for

Come if

You want to charge for food photography, not just make it
You can shoot confidently in A, S or M already
You have no portfolio and that is what is blocking you
You run a food business and are tired of paying for bad images
You can shoot and deliver one piece every single week

Skip it if

You still shoot on automatic — take OFF AUTO first
You want a phone-only course; this needs a camera and a tripod
You are looking for styling alone, without the technical side
You want strobes and heavy Photoshop — that is FOOD 102
You cannot commit four weeks of shooting between sessions

The prerequisite, and how to skip it

The official prerequisite is OFF AUTO. But if you already shoot confidently outside automatic mode, you do not need it — and I am not going to make you pay $50 to prove something you can just show me.

The waiver is free, and it takes me five minutes to review. Send it on WhatsApp any time, including before the dates are announced.

The point is not to keep people out. It is to stop someone who cannot leave auto mode from paying $200 and then drowning in week one, which helps nobody. If you don't pass, I will tell you kindly and point you at the intro course.

Send me

Three photographs shot in A, S or M — EXIF intact
One line on each: what you chose, and why
Going from f/8 to f/2 — what happens to the background, and why?
Your indoor photos come out orange. What is causing it, and how do you fix it in camera?
You want to freeze a single drop of water mid-fall. What are you changing?

Broadly right answers and images that show intent rather than luck. That is the whole bar.

Price and seats

^$200

The whole course. Eight live sessions, six briefed portfolio pieces, and your work critiqued every week.

Length: 8 sessions · 90 minutes
Over: 4 weeks · 2 per week
Where: Live on Google Meet
Language: Arabic & English
Seats: 10 only
Prerequisite: OFF AUTO or free waiver
You need: Camera, tripod, a window
Payment: Whish, OMT or transfer

DatesTBA

First refusalThe list, then the public

Ten seats, and the list gets them first.

Put me on the list No payment now. You get the dates before the page does.

Before you ask

When does it start?

Dates are TBA. Message me to go on the list — you will get the dates before this page does, and the list gets first refusal on the ten seats.

If you already know which days of the week suit you, tell me then. Ten people's availability is a schedule.

Do I have to take OFF AUTO first?

OFF AUTO or the free waiver — three photographs shot outside auto mode and three short questions. It is above, it costs nothing, and it takes me five minutes to read.

If you don't pass I will say so kindly and point you at the intro course. Nobody benefits from you paying $200 and drowning in week one.

What gear do I need?

A camera you can shoot manually, a tripod, and a window. That is genuinely it.

No strobes. This course is built on natural and continuous light on purpose — it is what you will have on most real jobs, and it is where the judgement gets built. A reflector and a piece of black card cost almost nothing and do most of the work. Strobes are FOOD 102.

Do I need a food stylist, or a proper kitchen?

No. Every assignment is designed around food you can buy or cook yourself, on a surface you already own. Styling is taught as a set of decisions — what earns its place in the frame and what doesn't — not as a shopping list.

Will I actually have a portfolio at the end?

Six pieces, and that is the point of the whole structure. Every assignment is briefed the way a client briefs a job: deliverable, format, constraints, deadline. In the last session they get reviewed together as a body of work, which is how a client will look at them.

You will not have a career. You will have the thing that has been blocking you from starting one.

Does it cover pricing and finding clients?

Session 8, entirely. Day rates versus per-image versus packages, why usage matters more than time, licensing, reading a brief before you quote, building a shot list, presenting self-directed work so it doesn't read as spec, and who to approach in Lebanon and what to send them.

This is the session that justifies the price. Almost nobody teaching food photography online will tell you what to charge.

Is it in Arabic or English?

Both, the way everyone in Beirut actually speaks. Technical terms stay in English because that is what is printed on your camera and in the software — everything else gets explained in Arabic.

How do I pay?

Whish, OMT or bank transfer, sorted in the chat. Nothing is due to join the list — payment only happens once dates are set and you have confirmed your seat.