Karim Hesham, How it works!
In his best-selling novel Man and Superman, Nobel Prize winner, playwright and author George Bernard Shaw wrote ‘There is no sincerer love than the love of food’.
According to Statista, the data analysis service, the Food Industry is currently worth 140,817 million dollars and is growing year upon year.
Our love of food is a global phenomenon and brings with it the demands of creating high-quality brands, customer loyalty and of course the requirement for incredible advertising campaigns and breathtaking food photography.
In 2008 Karim Hesham moved to Dubai, bringing his creativity and passion to his long-term love of food photography and hotels photography. His creative and passionate vision has been paramount in many successful advertising campaigns and also given him the opportunity to photograph for some of the top luxury hotels in the Dubai and global food chains.
Karim Hesham began working in graphic design at the tender age of 17, which has contributed to his unique approach and well-rounded skill-set with regards to producing outstanding and memorable advertising campaigns.
This love and passion for graphic design give Karim a distinct edge over his competitors. His attention to detail enables him to deliver exquisite imagery, whilst creating your own advertising story with beautiful and high quality food photography & Hotels photography.
Karim Hesham has brought his dedication and expertise to many global brands to create international campaigns for the top food chains and luxury hotels worldwide. During his 20 year’s experience, he has worked with many prestigious and well-known brands, helping them to share their vision in visual form. The list includes brands such as: KFC, Burger King, Hardees, Baskin Robbins, Papa Johns, Wendy’s, Krispy Kreme, TGI Friday’s, Lipton, Knorr, Subway, Red Lobster, Shake Shack & many more.. View full client list here.
Karim is able to offer creative styling to leave the most powerful impression on your customers and clients. Whether it is producing an artistic interpretation or creating mouth-watering images Karim has worked with Multi-National advertising agencies plus creative and art directors, to create world-class advertising campaigns and sumptuous food photography.
Whether you’re looking for a contemporary work of art, create brand awareness within your global company or inspirational food photography for your restaurant menu, Karim always delivers a seamless balance between creativity and your commercial requirements.
Why Create Your Brand Vision With Professional Photography
A brand is more than just a logo, colour palette, and your website. It’s an experience - and your visuals should communicate this, fully immersing your audience within your story and including them on your journey.
An initial meeting is a platform to evaluate your brand and to really understand your overall vision. Your photographer will meticulously capture your unique blend of magic with high quality imagery to bring your brand to life.
Your goal is to build awareness amongst consumers with visually appealing, engaging and perhaps thought-provoking photography. Professional photography is one of the best ways to establish a brand
There should be visual consistency at every brand touch point to engage your audience, so they recognise and fully understand their experience at every level with your premium brands and luxury hotel brands.
‘Professional photography is one of the best ways to establish a brand’
Most importantly is consistency in the colour palette, the tone, and the visuals which tie back to your brand vision. The way you style, and the immersive story you tell with images should be a key part of your visual strategy.
When you use your brand, and market it to consumers to help create awareness, this is not only for the buying public to recognise or feel familiar around the product, but also to establish a standard and reputation that will become synonymous with your company.
To assist your global brand, or luxury hotel to reach dizzy heights in the market -place, both offline and online, one of the best ways of achieving this is by hiring the services of a professional photographer and is an essential branding investment.
Simple point and shoot cameras and stock imagery will not be able to deliver the message your customer understands.
‘One of the best ways of achieving this is by hiring the services of a
professional photographer and is an essential branding investment’
A professional photographer will have the technical knowledge, creativity and professionalism coupled with high-technology cameras that carry a distinct style, composition and visual appeal.
Why You Need Authentic Visual Brand Representation
The images you use to promote and market your global food chain outlet or high-end hotel should have a visual style that is unique but easy to identify.
This style should be consistent across all the marketing platforms you use and from the very first day you begin your branding campaign.
A professional food photographer will produce high quality photos of your products and will establish the visual style you feel is right for your customers' journey - right from the very first shot. These images will have uniquely one style and quality across all media and marketing platforms, establishing a strong identity for your product.
What Is Food Photography?
Food photography is a still life photography genre used to create enticing still life images of food. It’s a specialist version of commercial photography and the results can be used on:
● Advertisements
● Magazines
● Packaging
● Menus
● Cookbooks
● General Marketing
Professional food photography is a collaborative affair, usually involving an art director, a photographer, a food stylist, a prop stylist and respective assistants. Food photographers like Karim are able to do all of the above,
It demands a passion and deep understanding of the products. Food contains all the elements of design that culminate in a striking image. The colours, texture, lines, shape, and form are captured in a way that entices your viewer to desire to eat what they are seeing immediately!
A beautifully executed food image will make the viewer’s mouth water and their stomachs rumble. It’s not just about taking a pretty picture, but more about creating an image that will ignite an instant desire in the viewer.
“We create mouthwatering images”
Photographed by Karim Hesham, Food Stylist Dubai Mary Kei, Alia El Sawy, Kirsten Ferriman-Else
Advertising Agency: Memac Ogilvy, Amber comm, Hug, Design Intoto Australia.
How a Photographer Creates Your Stellar Campaign
To create a compelling vision for your brand your photographer will blend their craft with your agency and food stylist in a painstakingly prepared pre-production meeting.
A photographer preparing for your photo shoot will audit the kind of shots you need and for what purpose.
Your professional photographer will work with you using a combination of the steps below to ensure the best experience for you and your clients or customers.
Have a Clear Vision of Your Goals
Your photographer will set goals of exactly what you would like to accomplish with your brand photo shoot. This will give you the framework you need to communicate your goals within your creative team and anyone else involved - so that everyone is ‘on the same page’ in terms of the outcome.
Identify Where the Photos Will Be Used
This will help plan out the exact shots required which will provide a range of content that remains cohesive and within your current brand style. This is also important to ensure the finished imagery fits within the specifications of various platforms. These may be either online or offline, such as menus, and larger platforms such as billboards, or within the online world such as Instagram & Facebook.
The finished result of where you would like your brand photos will dictate the type of shots required, (i.e vertical, horizontal, square crop or maybe a detail or wider type shot). The images’ final place will also help to organise the size of the images required to guarantee your photo shoot produces the right photos for the required end result.
Below are a few places where your professional photos may be used
● Billboards
● Social media Channels
● Website
● Menus
● Marketing brochures
● Newsletters
● Other promotional content*
* Including digital products such as guest blogs, features, podcasts etc.
Your professional photographer will understand the importance of the nuances required to create content that works well with the storytelling capability and strength of each platform. He will also be aware of the specific dimensions required on each platform to ensure the content is created suitably optimised.
What Are You Looking to Achieve?
Your professional photographer will work with you and bring his own personal creativity and expertise to achieve the desired outcome for your shoot. This is where experience like Karim’s are a major benefit in guiding the look to obtain your desired results.
It could be that your business is re-branding and your photography is being used to showcase your new brand and attract more clients. Maybe you’re launching a new product or service. This could be a new offering you’re looking to highlight and the photos from the shoot will be used in promotional material.
It could be that you’re beginning to use a new form of social media or marketing platform to promote your business and to ensure your brand is well represented, making a strong visual statement.
Create an Inspirational or Mood Board
Once you’ve identified where your photographs will be used, your professional photographer will assist you in gathering inspiration that will best help to capture the ‘look and feel’ of your particular campaign. Inspirational boards will capture the aesthetics of your project. An inspirational board will be made up of a variety of content that can be used as a visual reference
Gather a Detailed Shot List
Once your intentions and goals have been set out and there’s a clear vision from gathering inspiration, your professional photographer will create a detailed shot list. Your photographer will help to create ideas for specific props, and the style of the shot, the lighting, and general mood. Once a list of ideas has been brainstormed within your project team, a defined shot list will be created. This will include a variety of shots and locations, colours, signature backgrounds & surfaces which may have been used on previous shoots or that are associated with your brand.
Hotel Photography
Photographing your luxury hotel is essential marketing for your brand. There are a number of ways in which hotel photography uses a combination of techniques to achieve world class images. A stylish portfolio of marketing images will set your establishment apart from its competitors and really sell an outstanding experience to your clients and customers. There are a number of ways to achieve this.
● scrupulous attention to detail
● specialist lighting techniques
● Specific shoot timings (capturing day and evening light)
When working on a hotel photography project, We will meet with the Hotel marketing team to create a plan which takes into account your goals for the shoot. We’ll meticulously plan out shots to effectively capture the beauty of locations within your establishment.
Karim will undertake exploratory trips to your establishment to make sure he’s gathered enough information with regards to specific locations and the perfect times to shoot those locations, resulting in the highest level of quality images with which to present your fabulous interiors and exteriors for maximum appeal.
This will ensure that your hotel benefits from glorious shots using natural daylight and sunlight at optimum times during the day and evenings.
During these fact-finding visits, Karim will ascertain:
● How many shots per day will be taken
● The type of shots required
Whilst on the shoot he’ll work seamlessly with your in-house teams including housekeeping and engineering. This is to ensure fabrics, lighting and all fixtures and fittings used on the shoot are all scrupulously clean to make sure the highest standard of exceptional quality images are reproduced. There may also be occasions when furniture will need to be re-arranged to capture the best angle for the images.
Two Types of Hotel Photography
When photographing your hotel, there are two types of shoots to consider.
Functional Shots
These shots will give a visual representation of your facilities, including hotel rooms and suites. This is the main shoot which will ‘sell’ your hotel.
Lifestyle Shots
These will give the overall impression of your establishment. This type of shoot will contain models/props. Choosing models is very important to capture the correct demographic for your hotel. Karim will work closely with you to ensure the correct models are used in-keeping with your target market. We also understand that most luxury hotels are looking to reach out to all age groups, so we will make sure there are models covering a broad spectrum and take enough suitable images.
Karim has a very good understanding of the kinds of platforms, both on and offline that will be used to market your hotel, for instance, we’re fully aware of the requirements required by Trip Advisor and Booking.com to ensure your hotel is ranked at the top of their listings.
Many global hotel chains have their own guidelines and standards required in terms of their marketing and Karim will ensure these are followed to the letter. If your hotel doesn’t have such requirements, he’s able to work with you to create brand guidelines for the future.
First impressions are paramount to ensuring your luxury global hotel chain is successfully marketed to the correct client base achieved by presenting your establishment using high quality imagery. Using expert, professional photographers to capture your hotel is an essential part of your branding. Karim has years of specialist knowledge and experience to bring to your project.
‘First impressions are paramount’
Karim’s catalogue of clients speaks for itself, Karim has worked with all major hotel chains in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, We've shot for The Ritz Carlton, Intercontinental, Pullman, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Millennium Middle East and Africa, Ibis, The famous The Address Hotels, Damac Hotels.
Using all the above methods and to effortlessly capture the most stylish imagery for your global food brand, luxury hotel or any other project, get in touch with us to bring our experience, passion, and expertise to your ideas and inspiration for your next advertising campaign to life.
What separates Karim Hesham from the others?
Karim’s exceptional use of lighting is the main reason he stands head and shoulders above his peers and competitors. His food photography is utterly captivating and demonstrates the exceptional textures within the food, ultimately enticing viewers to eat with their eyes!
He’s not only able to create stunning compositions but enables the viewer to feel they can reach out and touch, resulting in an incredible experience for customers and clients.
Karim always concentrates on extremely high standards, meticulous interpretations and quality of shots, rather than quantity to display your brand creations to an incomparable level than offered by other photographers.
