Photography & Video
Content that stops thumbs — food, product, event and promo, shot and edited to book you work.
People buy what they can see. Riot Design shoots the plates, products, performances and people that make your business real to a stranger — food photography for Toronto chefs and caterers, event coverage for performers, and promo video edited vertical-first for the platforms where your customers actually are.
Food & product
Menu heroes and product shots lit like they cost more than they do.
Events & performance
Shows, launches and gigs captured while they happen.
Promo video
Shot and edited vertical and wide — made for social first.
Plates that sell the table.
Shot on location in working GTA kitchens — hero dishes lit to look like what they cost. Lobster, mussels, rack of lamb, carpaccio, and a raw bar’s worth of oysters.
Captured while it happens.
Live service, live shows, live nerves — event photography and coverage that puts the viewer in the room.
The face behind the business.
Owner portraits and brand photography — because for a chef, an instructor or a performer, you are the product.
The same eye, at 24 frames a second.
How to get ten times more out of one shoot.
- 01
Shoot for the year, not the post
A half-day food shoot done right yields 30+ images — a month of posts, a menu, a website hero and Google Business photos. Plan the shot list against everything you’ll need, then shoot once.
- 02
Vertical first
Reels, Shorts, TikTok and Stories are where local discovery happens now. We frame every video for 9:16 first and crop wide from there — never the reverse.
- 03
The hero dish strategy
Don’t photograph the whole menu equally. Three unforgettable hero shots outsell thirty adequate ones — lead with the lobster.
- 04
Capture the humans
The shucker’s gloves, the chef’s plating, the magician mid-reveal. Process shots build more trust than any finished-product photo.
- 05
Light is the whole game
Great food photography is 90% lighting. It’s why phone snaps of the same dish look like a different restaurant — and why the shoot pays for itself.
- 06
Refresh quarterly
Platforms reward fresh media and so does Google Business Profile. Budget one small shoot per season, not one big one per decade.
A private chef’s phone started ringing when the lobster started looking like it cost what it costs. Read the food photography case study →
What it costs
Photo & video
All prices CAD before HST. Travel within the GTA included.
How much does food photography cost in Toronto?
Typical GTA rates run $500–$1,500 for a half day depending on styling and usage rights. Ours is $650 flat for up to four hours and 30+ edited images, full commercial rights included.
Do restaurants and chefs really need professional photos?
Your food is judged by photo before it’s ever tasted — on Google, Instagram and delivery apps. One proper shoot outperforms years of phone snaps, and it feeds every channel at once.
Do you shoot on location?
Yes — kitchens, venues, studios, street. Travel anywhere in the GTA and Halton is included in the price.
How fast do I get the photos?
Selects within 48 hours, full edited gallery within a week. Event highlight clips within three days.
Who owns the images?
You do, outright — full commercial rights, no licensing fees, no fine print.
What should I photograph first?
Your three hero products, your space, and your face — in that order. That set covers a website, a Google profile and a month of posts.
The lobster that rang the phone
How hero-dish photography rebuilt a private chef’s bookings — full case study.
Event coverage in action
Shuck Off Oysters: brand, event photography and promo video from launch to fully booked.
Every photo price, published
Half-day to full-day, video add-ons included, in CAD.
Make tonight’s phone photos 80% better.
- 01
Kill the flash, find the window
Phone flash is what makes food look like evidence. Side-light from a window (or one lamp) adds the shadows that make a plate look like it costs money.
- 02
Chest height, three angles
Straight down for flat things, 45° for plates, eye-level for people and drinks. Take all three, keep the best — pros do exactly this.
- 03
Get closer than feels right
Fill the frame with the subject. The table, the wall and the ceiling are not the product.
- 04
One step of clean-up
Wipe the plate edge, straighten the bottle, pocket the receipt. Ninety seconds of styling beats any filter ever made.
That’s the free 80%. The last 20% — real lighting, real lenses, editing and a shot list built around your whole year of content — is what a $650 half-day shoot buys.
Let’s make your work look like it deserves.
A free 20-minute call. No pressure, no jargon — just a straight answer on what your business needs next.