Source: Peerspace
Still life photography is the quiet discipline behind almost every food, drink, product and packaging image you see from a London brand. There is no model to direct and no venue to manage, only a subject, a surface and the light falling across it, and that leaves nowhere to hide a weak composition. It also means the genre bleeds across categories: the same photographer who shoots a hero shot of a cocktail for a menu redesign is often the one a brand calls for its packaging range or an interiors set.
We looked at London photographers working across food, drink, product and object photography and picked five whose client lists and credentials we could check against a source, not just take on trust.
How we created our list
Our goal is to connect you with photographers who have a proven track record of excellence and reliability. We vetted the best photographers based on a set of criteria:
- Portfolio depth: We look at the full body of work behind each photographer, not just a handful of standout images, to get a true sense of consistency and skill.
- Client reviews across multiple platforms: We analyze feedback from clients on Google, popular booking platforms, and social media to ensure consistent satisfaction.
- Industry recognition and awards: We look for photographers with accolades from respected organizations and industry bodies relevant to their specialty, whether that’s weddings, commercial work, or beyond.
- Professional credentials and associations: Active membership in industry groups, relevant certifications, and verified business operations, including appropriate insurance for working in the city, are often held by our photographers.
Best still life photographers in London
1. Amrita Diwanji Photography
Photographer: Amrita Diwanji / Amrita Diwanji
Speciality: Food and beverage photography, with a parallel practice in product, interiors, portraiture and travel. She trained in India for close to a decade before relocating to London in November 2021.
Notable work: Her client list splits between hospitality and consumer brands: Ibérica, Arros QD, HG Walter, Pasta Evangelists, EL&N London and The Juice Smith, alongside earlier work in India for the Taj group, Singapore Airlines and Condé Nast Traveller. Her photography for Action Against Hunger has been rolled out in Waitrose stores across the UK, and she has produced assets for seed funding campaigns that raised more than £200,000. Before photography she held a BSc in Psychology from the University of York and an MSc in HR Management from the LSE, and built a management consulting career across Paris, London and Bombay before launching her studio in 2014. She was Commended at the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year Award in 2017, 2019 and 2021, in the InterContinental Food at the Table, Champagne Taittinger Wedding Food and World Food Programme Food for Life categories, and won both the Lonely Planet London and KAYAK photo contests in 2012. Her images have appeared in Vogue India, Forbes India, Condé Nast Traveller, Design Anthology and Elle Decor.
Pricing: Quoted on enquiry. No rate card is published.
Why we rate her: Few photographers on this list have shot for both an airline and a UK food bank campaign. That range, food styled for luxury and food styled to move people to donate, is a genuinely different brief each time, and her portfolio shows she can hold the same technical standard across both. The consulting background shows in how she talks to brand teams about a brief.
Connect with her: Follow @adiwanji on Instagram.
2. Gareth Morgans Photography
Photographer: Gareth Morgans / Gareth Morgans
Speciality: Commercial food photography for retail packaging, magazine covers, cookbooks and recipe content, shot from his studio in SE1 in daylight or daylight-balanced studio light.
Notable work: His client roster is built on supermarket own-brand and recipe work at scale: Tesco, Waitrose, M&S, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Ocado, Co-op and BBC Food, plus recipe box brands HelloFresh and Slimming World, and campaign work for Heinz, Birds Eye, Costa, Dolmio, Wagamama, Häagen-Dazs and Ryvita. Magazine mastheads he has shot covers for include Delicious, Olive, Good Food and Good Housekeeping. Recent covers include a steak shot for the May 2026 issue of Tesco magazine and an asparagus cover for HelloFresh’s spring 2026 issue, a harder brief than an inside recipe page since it has to work as a single newsstand image. He also shoots cookbooks for Watkins Publishing, including “Yatra” and “My Tel Aviv Table”, and produces motion work. He holds an AoP Open Award, a TIFA Gold Medal and a Gold win at the Prix de la Photographie Paris, all from 2020, alongside a Creativepool Award and a Food Photographer of the Year placing the same year, an International Color Awards win, and a One Eyeland Gold in 2018.
Pricing: Quoted on enquiry. No rate card is published.
Why we rate him: Supermarket own-brand photography is unglamorous but relentless: hundreds of SKUs a year, tight turnarounds, and a house style that has to stay consistent across every one of them. A client list this deep in that category, sustained over years rather than a single campaign, is a good proxy for reliability under repeat pressure.
Connect with him: Follow @garethmorgansphoto on Instagram.
3. Jennifer Cauli Photography
Photographer: Jennifer Cauli / Jennifer Cauli
Speciality: Food, product, interiors and travel photography for independent restaurants and small food brands, plus occasional video. Based in north London.
Notable work: Her portfolio centres on independent hospitality rather than national chains: Norma, Gallio in Canary Wharf, Three Uncles in Brixton, Señor Ceviche and Kona Kai, alongside e-commerce and product shoots for La Maison Organic and recipe development work for Alphonso Mango. She grew up around a professional kitchen, since her mother worked as a chef in Italy, and that background led to her own book, “The Sardinia Blue Zone Cookbook”, which she wrote and photographed in 2025. She has since discussed it in a radio interview with Unica Radio Cagliari and written about the Sardinian Blue Zone diet for The Italy Edit. She was shortlisted in the Guardian-featured Picfair Women Behind the Lens contest and Commended in the Food for Celebration category at the World Food Photography Awards 2020.
Pricing: Quoted on enquiry. No rate card is published, though she describes working to each client’s budget.
Why we rate her: Independent restaurants rarely have the budget or the shot list of a supermarket account, and the brief is usually “make this feel like somewhere people want to eat” rather than a technical spec sheet. Her client list of smaller, character-led venues suggests she is well suited to that kind of brief, and her own cookbook shows she can carry a food story from recipe to finished page as both writer and photographer.
Connect with her: Follow @jennifer_cauli on Instagram.
4. Kris Kirkham Photography
Photographer: Kris Kirkham / Kris Kirkham, working from a studio in SW18, Wandsworth
Speciality: Food, drink and still life photography for advertising, packaging and editorial, alongside motion content.
Notable work: He has photographed Waitrose recipe cards since 2022, and holds long-running relationships with the cookbook author known as The Curry Guy, now a decade old, and with the chef Sabrina Ghayour. Other named clients include M&S, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Subway, Nando’s, Itsu and Deliveroo. He moved from Vancouver to London in 2006 to study photography at University of the Arts, working as a chef at the National Gallery while he did, after 15 years in professional kitchens in Canada and the UK. His award record is the deepest here in still life specifically: One Eyeland ranked him the UK’s number one still life photographer in 2021, fourth in its world top 10 in 2022, and third in the world overall in 2024, and he took three Bronze awards in its still life category in 2020 before judging the competition in 2023. He won the Previously Published category at the World Food Photography Awards in 2023, took second in Food Portraiture in 2019, and was a finalist in two categories in 2025. He has also placed third with an Honor in Food Distinction at the International Color Awards, been listed in Lürzer’s Archive Top 200 Advertising Photographers across two editions, and reached the AOP Awards final in 2022 and 2024.
Pricing: Quoted on enquiry through his agent, Style Department. No rate card is published.
Why we rate him: A former chef shooting food is a common enough pitch that it can start to feel like a line in a bio. What makes it credible here is everything around it: a decade-long relationship with one cookbook author, a supermarket recipe card account running since 2022, and an independent guild that has ranked him the best still life photographer in the country. On a list about still life specifically, that last one is hard to argue with.
Connect with him: Follow @kriskirkham on Instagram.
5. Robin Goodlad Photography
Photographer: Robin Goodlad / Robin Goodlad
Speciality: Food, drink, produce and lifestyle photography, run alongside a wedding practice. He is based in Wimborne, Dorset, and covers Dorset, Hampshire, the South of England and London, so he is worth including for brands happy to bring him in rather than expecting a London studio address.
Notable work: His food client list includes Rick Stein, Farmacy, the Dorset Meat Company and Pipers Crisps, alongside Telegraph Luxury, Real Cure, Harbour and Somerley, with images that have also run in Sainsbury’s and on the BBC. He won the Field category at the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year competition in 2016 and has placed or reached the final almost every year since, taking third in Field in 2017, third in Sale in 2018, a Highly Commended in 2019 and finalist places in 2020, 2021 and 2023. He also took third place in the Marks and Spencer Food Portraiture Award in 2020. An appearance on BBC MasterChef gave him an interest in how food looks on a plate that carried straight into a second career, and he grows, catches and rears much of what he shoots, testing recipes himself. He shoots from his own studio or travels with a full lighting kit and props.
Pricing: Quoted on enquiry. No rate card is published.
Why we rate him: He is the one name here without a London base, and we think that is worth being upfront about rather than glossing over. What earns him a place anyway is the run of Pink Lady results: a category win plus repeat placings over multiple years is a harder thing to sustain than a single strong entry, and it is judged by an independent panel rather than a client testimonial.
Connect with him: Follow @robingoodladfoodphotography on Instagram.
Finding the right still life photographer
Still life work is judged differently to an event or a portrait. There is no single decisive moment to capture, so the questions worth asking are different too.
1. Ask what they shoot when nobody has briefed them
Personal or test shoot work on a portfolio tends to show a photographer’s actual taste, since there is no client sign-off softening it. If a portfolio is entirely commissioned work, ask to see it anyway, but weigh it knowing every image passed through someone else’s approval first.
2. Ask who does the styling
Food and product photography usually needs a stylist as much as a photographer, whether that is the photographer themselves, a partner they work with regularly, or someone you will need to source separately. Get this settled before you compare quotes, since a day rate that includes styling and one that does not are not the same number.
3. Confirm what a day actually gets you
A shoot day can mean anywhere from 15 to 40-plus final images depending on product complexity and whether shots are simple packshots or fully styled scenes. Ask for a number before booking rather than after, and ask whether that number is per dish, per product, or per finished, retouched frame.
4. Check where they shoot
Studio, on location in your own kitchen or shop, or their own space each carry different costs and different constraints. A restaurant that wants its own room in the background needs someone comfortable bringing lighting on location; a brand that just needs clean product shots on white may be better served by a studio day. Two photographers here travel with a full lighting kit rather than working only from a fixed address.
5. Look at the awards, then look again
Awards from bodies with an independent judging process, such as Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year, the World Food Photography Awards or One Eyeland, mean something different to a badge from a supplier directory that lists a photographer alongside hundreds of others. Check what the award actually was as well: a category win, a national ranking and a finalist place are three different things, and they can look identical in a website footer.
Planning a still life shoot in London
What it costs
Pricing for food, drink and product photography varies more than almost any other category, because a white-background packshot and a fully styled hero image for a campaign are, in practical terms, different services bought from the same person. At the volume end, per-image rates for simple ecommerce packshots run under £10 once you are ordering in the hundreds. A full day of styled, creative shooting with a specialist studio typically runs into four figures.
None of the five photographers on this list publish a rate card, which is standard for this category since food, drink, product and packaging briefs vary so much in scope. Get a quote against your specific brief rather than assuming a day rate will transfer between photographers, and be clear whether you are asking for a day rate, a per-image rate or a project fee, since those three answers are not comparable.
Studio or location
Some photographers on this list shoot from their own studio, Gareth Morgans in SE1 and Kris Kirkham in Wandsworth, while others prefer to work in the client’s own kitchen or shop, or travel between the two depending on the brief. If you do not have a studio and do not want the shoot happening in a live kitchen or shopfront, Peerspace lists photo studios across London with the lighting and backdrops that food, drink and product work usually need, bookable by the hour.
Styling and props
A styled food or product shot is rarely just the photographer. Prop stylists and food stylists are common additions to a brief, and drinks work sometimes needs a separate liquid stylist, and their day rates sit on top of the photographer’s fee. Ask early whether your photographer works with a regular team or expects you to source one, since that changes both the cost and the timeline. Two photographers here trained as chefs first, which tends to reduce how much external food styling a shoot needs.
Turnaround
Retouching is usually the longest part of a still life job, not the shoot itself. A single day of shooting can produce a week or more of editing if the brief calls for heavy composite work, such as multiple exposures blended into one frame. Confirm turnaround before booking, especially if the images are tied to a launch date.
FAQs: hiring a still life photographer in London
What counts as still life photography?
In a commercial context it covers food on a plate, drinks in a glass, products on a shelf and objects arranged for their own sake, as distinct from photography built around people or places. Most working photographers in this space move between two or three of those categories rather than shooting only one.
How much does still life photography cost in London?
It depends heavily on scope. Simple product packshots run into single figures per image at volume, while a full day of styled food or product photography with a stylist attached typically runs into four figures. None of the photographers on this list publish a fixed rate, so get a quote against your specific brief.
Do I need a food or prop stylist as well as a photographer?
For most styled food, drink or product shoots, yes. Some photographers can style simply themselves, and the two former chefs on this list are comfortable doing more of it than most. More complex briefs usually need a dedicated stylist. Ask your photographer what they recommend before you budget.
Should I book a studio or shoot on location?
If you want your own kitchen, shopfront or interior in the shot, you will need a photographer willing to travel and bring lighting on location. If you just need clean, controllable images of a product, a studio session is usually quicker and cheaper.
How far in advance should I book?
Established photographers in this space are often booked several weeks out, and further ahead around seasonal content pushes like Christmas ranges, which are typically shot in the summer before. Build in time for a follow-up shoot if the first round does not cover everything you need.
Great food images start with the right room
Still life is the one photography category where the subject cannot help you. A person can smile, a venue can carry a bad frame, a plate of food sitting on a surface does neither. Everything comes down to how it is lit and styled, and to the judgement of whoever arranges it, which is why the credentials on this list are worth reading properly rather than skimming.
Once you have your photographer, the question is where the shoot happens. Explore Peerspace’s collection of photo studios in London, bookable by the hour with the lighting, surfaces and space a styled table setup needs, so you pay only for the hours the shoot actually takes.
If you have feedback on our list, our team would like to hear from you. Contact us any time at [email protected] with suggestions, corrections or additions.
This list reflects our research as of July 2026.
