Professional food Instagrammer shares his top tips

Restaurants hire Dillon Burke to make their dishes shareable on social media.

ByABC News
August 11, 2017, 8:21 AM

— -- A professional food Instagrammer who works directly with restaurants to make their dishes more shareable on social media, opened up about his top tips for taking food photos in an interview with "Good Morning America."

Dillon Burke, 27, the co-founder of "Front of House," a digital branding and marketing firm that helps restaurants market their food on social media, told ABC News that Instagramming food is "a real business."

PHOTO: Dillon Burke, the co-founder of "Front of House," a digital branding firm that helps restaurants market their food on social media shared his top tips for taking food pics with "GMA."
Dillon Burke, the co-founder of "Front of House," a digital branding firm that helps restaurants market their food on social media shared his top tips for taking food pics with "GMA."

Burke, who has a background in photography, added that "almost all" restaurants are working to make their food more shareable on social media in some way.

"We're now in this space where hashtags come to play, and location tags," Burke said, adding that his business enters the equation because "if you're running a restaurant you probably don't have time" to manage social media handles as well.

"You eat with your eyes first. When the food comes out you look at it. If something looks like junk, it affects the way you taste it," Andrew Knowlton of Bon Appetit magazine told ABC News. "Instagram has taken that, and pumped it up, to make it look good."

Yvan Lemoine, the Executive Chef at Union Fare, a restaurant in New York City, told ABC News that he credits Burke with causing a major boom in business, after Burke made their birthday cake croissant go viral.

"There's constantly people coming in just requesting things from Instagram," Lemoine said.

PHOTO: Dillon Burke, the co-founder of "Front of House," a digital branding firm that helps restaurants market their food on social media shared his top tips for taking food pics with "GMA."
Dillon Burke, the co-founder of "Front of House," a digital branding firm that helps restaurants market their food on social media shared his top tips for taking food pics with "GMA."

Burke told ABC News the secret to a perfect food post on Instagram is to "take your time."

"I say don't use zoom ... it'll get pixelated," Burke added. "If you want the best image, shoot it then crop inwards."

Lastly, Burke said that the biggest mistake people do when photographing food is using the wrong light.

"You need natural light," Burke said. "You have to pay attention to where the light source is from."

PHOTO: Dillon Burke, the co-founder of "Front of House," a digital branding firm that helps restaurants market their food on social media shared his top tips for taking food pics with "GMA."
Dillon Burke, the co-founder of "Front of House," a digital branding firm that helps restaurants market their food on social media shared his top tips for taking food pics with "GMA."