Campaign Story #04 - Garden (Long-term collaboration)

16 Oct

Social Media Content

Porto/Braga/Guimarães

Client
Garden (Restaurant chain with Porto, Braga and Guimarães locations)

Agency
Opal

Location
Porto/Braga/Guimarães

Industry
Food

Deliverables
40 images / 15 short videos once a month

Usage
Social

A year ago, in October 2025, Opal reached out to me with a long-term project in mind: Garden, a restaurant chain with 3 different locations, needed images for social media. The idea was to go there every month and create both stills and video to feed their social media channels.

As always with social media, we would need to create a lot of content in a short amount of time. Think 40 stills images and 15 videos in 4h.

Ambitious? Absolutely.

Possible? Probably.

The Brief

3 restaurants from the same group
1 shoot a month, one restaurant at a time
Half-day shoots
Lots of images needed (40 stills + 15 video per shoot)
Social only, meaning trendy imagery that was easily approachable
No budget for models

OK, let’s unpack this really quick. I would be working alone (no assistant), doing both stills and video, having to shoot all the dishes + cocktails + hot drinks, both inside and outside. All of this meant the approach needed to be run and gun based: no tripods, no gimbals, one or two lights and shoot everything handheld.

Oh, and one take only — had to get it right on the first try. No pressure.

The agency would take care of the model situation without having to spend more money.

The Challenge

40 images + 15 short videos in 3-4 hours, every month
Restaurant would be working at the same time
Working in small spaces, trying not to get in the way of clients or staff
All social content meant shooting everything vertically
One take - don’t mess it up

The Production
One shot. One opportunity.

As these were several different shoots over different months and in 3 different places, some days were better than others. The pressure was high, but overall I feel like we managed to deliver on what was asked.

I followed the briefs as closely as possible, while trying to be true to my own vision whenever possible. The agency was very helpful and managed the shot lists for the most part.

It was definitely challenging and sometimes a bit chaotic, but that comes with the territory.

Take a look at some of my favorites: