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.

Making the Grade in Food Photography

I feel most alive when I'm learning something new. I love a challenge, even when I struggle, or fail. My mother once told me that there's always something to be learned no matter what you're doing. At the time, I was crying to her about my high school summer job making collections calls for a credit card company in France.

I felt alive during that brief, brutal period in high school when I tried out for the girls' ice hockey team (I was thankfully cut before breaking any bones), I felt alive during those terrifying sleepless nights when I first became a mom, and I've felt electrified for the last year that I've been learning about food photography.

Learning doesn't mean excelling (especially on the ice), and that's definitely been the case for my food photography. I'm still struggling to make the shot in my head appear through my lens. Last night for example, I read a wonderful post on the Pioneer Woman's blog about aperture. She made it seem so easy, but today everything came out blurry. But I'm still trying, snapping away, and learning as I shoot and erase.

In a few months, I'm headed to food blogger camp in California to learn a whole lot more about food blogging and food photography. They've asked us to submit our rejections from the Tastespotting website. I'm scared of being held up as an object of ridicule, but this is a chance to improve. What's a few seconds of embarrassment if I can learn?

I'll be sharing the pictures above. The first was rejected for blurriness. The second for composition. Just one word answers when I could have used more explanation. I thought they were good... but they didn't. Soon I'll know why.

Happy Wordful, not so Wordless and Way-back wednesday! 


And click here if you want to see the one picture that did get accepted!

A Vision of Twins

While the kids were caught up with the sea lions at the zoo the other day, I was amazed by the perfect reflection in the glass. I had twins for an instant... until they moved on to the penguins. Happy Wordless Wednesday and Wordful Wednesday!

My In-Laws Went to the Olympics

and all I got were some pretty amazing pictures!