9 Cheap Props Every Budding Food Blogger Needs

Are you frustrated by your food photography? Do you make a beautiful dish, shoot it from all angles only to discover that you got some okay pictures, but nothing with that ethereal, mouth-watering quality? Do you hunger for a biggger, fancier camera, thinking, "If I only had that lens, my photography would be so much better."

I certainly do. 

I've been really working on my food photography for the last year and a half, eating plate after plate of cold food after having put my camera down in disgust and frustration. And as I shovel in my cold dinner, pining after the massive uzi-like professional cameras with lenses larger than microscopes, I mentally calculate how to budget for a $1000 lens.

But at BlogHer Food, I got some great news. It turns out that the pining was unnecessary, because I'm not ready for a monster lens. Instead, I heard about tons of inexpensive (under $5) props that will revolutionize my food photography.

It's hard to find time to shop when you're buried under a week's worth of five people's dirty laundry, but I'll share the list with you so we're both ready for greatness:

1. White Foam Core Board - Available at Michael's, Lowe's, or for more money at photo stores - Gives shots that gorgeous, infinite white background. Also lets you bounce light onto a subject for gentler and warmer lighting.
2. Black Foam Core Board - Available at Michael's or Foam Core Heaven (how do people come up with these names!) This is also useful as a background, or just to remove extra light from a shot.
3. Wallpaper -Believe it or not, many of those dishes you've seen served on well-worn wooden tables, those that look as though they've witnessed generations of families enjoying feasts, were really sitting on a small piece of wallpaper. Astek Wallcoverings makes designs in distressed wood, dark oak, green bamboo, and cork just to name a few. They'll send you samples for $5 each. Much cheaper than a table.
4. Tile Slate - $2.50 for an 18" by 18" tile at Lowe's - Food photography is all about texture. These tiles give the illusion of having the food sit in a luxurious garden at some 5-star hotel. They come in dark gray or with brownish hues. At that price, you can get a few to highlight the food differently. 
5. Clamps - $2.50 each at Home Depot - Sounds like something your grandpa might have stored in the garage, but having 3 or 4 clamps on hand can be a lifesaver. They will hold your foam core together, and let it stand up without needing an assistant.
6. Eye Dropper - $2.50 at Amazon - This will let you really control that casual sauce dripping around the plate, even letting you surgically add one more drop.
7. Mister - $9.89 at Amazon - The food styling session at times drifted in the territory of things you wouldn't want to do to food you still plan on eating, but this tip, misting steaks salads with a little light vegetable oil to make them glisten and seem fresher, is something I plan on trying.
8. Tweezers - many long tweezers on ebay - I'm not sure that I have the patience to start fiddling with my pictures with tweezers to remove extra crumbs, but the food styling folks swear by them.
9. Ego Lights - Set of 2 for $89 at Adorama at Amazon - Now we're getting way out of the under $10 range here, but this is the only expensive item I'm considereing as a result of my time at BlogherFood. I try hard to shoot in the daytime, in my two hours of freedom while my little one is at preschool, but often, life gets in the way and I find myself trying to recreate daylight at 11PM. Those pictures come out yellow and drab. Jaden from Steamy Kitchen swears by these Ego Lights.

I learned a ton at BlogHer Food. I've already blogged about the White on Rice food photography session and have pages and pages of notes on food styling, telling a story through photography with Penny de Los Santos, and an inspirational keynote session with Michael Ruhlman, Molly Wizenberg from Orangette, and Shauna from Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. I'll share those with you in one more post later this week, once I've digested it all.