Resources for Food Bloggers

One of the reasons I love blogging is that it lets me wear so many hats - top hat, tiara, bowler, dunce cap... But seriously, I get to garden, cook, review restaurants, write, take photographs, play at being a graphic designer, do some light coding and tech troubleshooting, meet new people, research stuff I'm interested in, and more. But that's also kind of a lot of things to try to be good at. So I'm very grateful for the tools and resources that make my job easier, more productive and more enjoyable and that make my blog, well, better. And there is no reason that these tools and resources can't do the same for you as you move forward in your quest for a better blog.

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links which means that I will earn a small commission if you purchase the item through that link. None of these links are "sponsored" in any way - they are all things that I either use or would use if I could afford them :-)

Food Photography

Cameras

I have a little secret to share with you - you don't actually need to be a trained photographer to take good pictures nowadays. But you do need a good eye for composition, at least one good lens and a good camera. And that means a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera.

I use an older Nikon D50 DSLR that my husband got years ago and I quickly adopted as my own. It's old and very weak compared with the current models but still serves me very well. When I upgrade, I will opt for either the Canon EOS 6D or the Nikon D7100 as those are the choices that my blogger friends who take amazing photographs all seem to like.


But if you're just starting out and are not independently wealthy, the Canon EOS Rebel would also be a good option.

Lenses

In order to do food photography right, it's important to have a macro lens - this allows you to take those mouth-watering close-ups. You have two options:

1. Shell out the serious money and get yourself a true macro lens. If you go that route, I'd recommend purchasing either a Nikon 50mm f/1.4G or a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens, depending on which brand you use.

- OR -

2. Get a much cheaper and very serviceable Nikon 50mm f/1.8D lens or a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. I have one of these and find that it's pretty great for everything except extreme closeups and shots where you want a really deep depth of field (blurry in one area and sharp in another.) If you're on a budget (and most of us are!), this might be a good option for you. You can always upgrade later on.

Lighting

Although natural light is the best light (bonus points for it being completely free!) it is not always available... You may not get great light where you have to take most of your pix or you may end up doing photo shoots after dark - it's pretty hard to get around the need for artificial light in the winter months. But the good news is that you can buy things that are almost as good as natural light and are always available.

Tabletop Light

One essential is this tabletop fluorescent light by Lowel EGO that is designed specifically for digital photography. I learned about this from Lindsay at Pinch of Yum and although I was a little skeptical about turning all the lights off and just using this at first, I am a total convert! It beats the pants off the crappy, yellow light cast by my kitchen overheads and allows me to shoot decent photos after dark or on rainy days. Now to reshoot eight years worth of poorly lit photos... You may even want to get more than one of these lights to give yourself more flexibility.

Reflectors

Thankfully, these can be very cheap. You can either buy a set of these collapsible reflectors or just use a few pieces of white foam or cardboard to bounce light back at your food, thereby improving your lighting! My food photography teacher, Phil Mansfield (a great guy who is the staff photographer for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY) offers this basic advice: shoot into the light and bounce that light back onto what you're shooting using reflectors.

Tripod


This three-legged companion can help you make the best of less than ideal lighting. By allowing you to shoot in perfect stillness, it gives you a little more play so you can use a slower shutter speed and let more light in in a low-light situation. Plus, everything just ends up looking better when your hand is not jiggling. And there's this psychological component to it, too, I think. Knowing that you'll set up the shoot with a tripod makes you take more care with your styling, your props, your lighting, etc. Weird but true.

I use a cheap Slik Sprint 150 tripod which is plenty tall and reasonably sturdy but still lightweight if I have to take it anywhere. And I recommend using a sand bag or a stone bag to weight it down so that it does not wobble or topple over with your camera on top of it. Kind of a must with small kids around but a good idea for anyone.


Photo Editing Software

Even if you're taking good photos, your job will almost always require some manipulation of those photos to make them look the best you can. Professionals call this "post-production" and it includes things like cropping, rotating, adjusting lighting, contrast, midtones, saturation, etc., to make the image really pop. These tools make all those things easier.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is still the gold standard for photo editing - it's the most powerful tool available to manipulate your images and will give you more fine grained controls than anything else out there. Photoshop Elements is probably more than enough for you and it's a bit cheaper than regular Photoshop, too.

Adobe Lightroom

The tool people seem to love (but I have not tried) is Adobe Lightroom. I may have to invest in a license soon. If you're interested in giving it a shot, here's a great tutorial on how to use it from Marc at No Recipes.

Aviary via Flickr

I have a Flickr Pro account that I use to store my photos (well, that's one of the places I store them - always have a back up - more on that below!) and I end up doing some of my image manipulation in Aviary, the online tool they offer. They used to partner with Picnik which was definitely more powerful but Aviary is certainly more convenient than opening up Photoshop or Lightroom if you're in a rush.


Graphic Design

When I first started blogging way back in 2006, graphics were not such a big thing. But with the rise of Pinterest and Facebook, they've become a necessity. The good news is that you don't need to be a graphic designer to put together something that looks nice. There are a lot of tools available - many of them free or cheap and I'm sure there will be more. Here are a few of the ones I like.


Photoshop

I've had a copy of Adobe Photoshop for about ten years and still use it fairly often in combination with the other tools below. I took a one-day class many years ago that helped me get started and even though I barely scratch the surface of its functionality, I appreciate everything it offers me. You can buy a copy of Photoshop Elements more cheaply than full Photoshop and it does pretty much everything you'll need to do.


Canva

Canva is a pretty awesome web-based tool for creating graphics. It offers you the ability to choose from their many, many layouts (many or most of which are free) and pop in your own photos and text to make professional looking graphics. I find their font selection kind of limited but imagine that they'll end up expanding it.


PicMonkey

PicMonkey is another of my favorite online tools. Their free selection is fairly robust and they've got a lot of cool things to choose from and are always adding new fonts, backgrounds, filters, etc. I particularly love how their tool lets me choose from either their fonts or the ones installed on my computer since I've added a lot to my font library.


Photo Storage

If you're going to take a lot of digital photographs, it's best to have a safe way to store them.

Memory Card

First of all, you'll most likely want to get a larger memory card for your camera, especially if you take your images in RAW format or shoot videos. This SanDisk Extreme PRO memory card should do the trick nicely.


Back Up Drive/External Hard Drive

Then you'll want a back up hard drive to store them on. I use a WD Elements portable hard drive - it's small and connects via USB and gives me a whopping 2 Terrabytes of storage (you can get one that offers more storage, too, of course.)

External Storage

But since hard drives can and do crash and burn sometimes, it's a good idea to also store your files somewhere else. You can do this in "the cloud" if you wish. I use Flickr Pro or you could use Google's Picasa (it's free).

Or you can use one of the paid back-up services like iDrive which I used at my old job - I like that it gives you the choice of whether to back-up certain files and is unobtrusive - it just runs in the background. I've also used Carbonite but found it a bit clunkier and more annoying.

Food Styling

I'm not an expert in this but I have gleaned some lessons either the hard way or by reading about them from people who are experts. Things like:
  • Use small bowls and plates - it's much easier to make food look abundant if you're not filling a football field-sized container. 
  • Think about the story you're trying to tell with your photo and your food. Do you want to show a perfect muffin or would it be more compelling to show a half eaten muffin surrounded by crumbs? Bea at La Tartine Gourmande is really good at this! She's also got great, very charming props.
  • Be intentional about the mood you're striving for. And it need not be all sunshine and light - darker lighting can create great atmosphere.
  • Don't be afraid to mess things up - while perfect is impressive it can also be kind of boring and probably does not tell a very interesting story.
  • Including a human touch can bring your image to life - a hand in blurry motion, a fork swooping in for a bite, etc.
Instruction & Inspiration
More food styling tips from folks who are very good at it:
Some other sites and blogs that I just like looking at include:
You might also like:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Resources for Food Bloggers

One of the reasons I love blogging is that it lets me wear so many hats - top hat, tiara, bowler, dunce cap... But seriously, I get to garden, cook, review restaurants, write, take photographs, play at being a graphic designer, do some light coding and tech troubleshooting, meet new people, research stuff I'm interested in, and more. But that's also kind of a lot of things to try to be good at. So I'm very grateful for the tools and resources that make my job easier, more productive and more enjoyable and that make my blog, well, better. And there is no reason that these tools and resources can't do the same for you as you move forward in your quest for a better blog.

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links which means that I will earn a small commission if you purchase the item through that link. None of these links are "sponsored" in any way - they are all things that I either use or would use if I could afford them :-)

Food Photography

Cameras

I have a little secret to share with you - you don't actually need to be a trained photographer to take good pictures nowadays. But you do need a good eye for composition, at least one good lens and a good camera. And that means a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera.

I use an older Nikon D50 DSLR that my husband got years ago and I quickly adopted as my own. It's old and very weak compared with the current models but still serves me very well. When I upgrade, I will opt for either the Canon EOS 6D or the Nikon D7100 as those are the choices that my blogger friends who take amazing photographs all seem to like.


But if you're just starting out and are not independently wealthy, the Canon EOS Rebel would also be a good option.

Lenses

In order to do food photography right, it's important to have a macro lens - this allows you to take those mouth-watering close-ups. You have two options:

1. Shell out the serious money and get yourself a true macro lens. If you go that route, I'd recommend purchasing either a Nikon 50mm f/1.4G or a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens, depending on which brand you use.

- OR -

2. Get a much cheaper and very serviceable Nikon 50mm f/1.8D lens or a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. I have one of these and find that it's pretty great for everything except extreme closeups and shots where you want a really deep depth of field (blurry in one area and sharp in another.) If you're on a budget (and most of us are!), this might be a good option for you. You can always upgrade later on.

Lighting

Although natural light is the best light (bonus points for it being completely free!) it is not always available... You may not get great light where you have to take most of your pix or you may end up doing photo shoots after dark - it's pretty hard to get around the need for artificial light in the winter months. But the good news is that you can buy things that are almost as good as natural light and are always available.

Tabletop Light

One essential is this tabletop fluorescent light by Lowel EGO that is designed specifically for digital photography. I learned about this from Lindsay at Pinch of Yum and although I was a little skeptical about turning all the lights off and just using this at first, I am a total convert! It beats the pants off the crappy, yellow light cast by my kitchen overheads and allows me to shoot decent photos after dark or on rainy days. Now to reshoot eight years worth of poorly lit photos... You may even want to get more than one of these lights to give yourself more flexibility.

Reflectors

Thankfully, these can be very cheap. You can either buy a set of these collapsible reflectors or just use a few pieces of white foam or cardboard to bounce light back at your food, thereby improving your lighting! My food photography teacher, Phil Mansfield (a great guy who is the staff photographer for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY) offers this basic advice: shoot into the light and bounce that light back onto what you're shooting using reflectors.

Tripod


This three-legged companion can help you make the best of less than ideal lighting. By allowing you to shoot in perfect stillness, it gives you a little more play so you can use a slower shutter speed and let more light in in a low-light situation. Plus, everything just ends up looking better when your hand is not jiggling. And there's this psychological component to it, too, I think. Knowing that you'll set up the shoot with a tripod makes you take more care with your styling, your props, your lighting, etc. Weird but true.

I use a cheap Slik Sprint 150 tripod which is plenty tall and reasonably sturdy but still lightweight if I have to take it anywhere. And I recommend using a sand bag or a stone bag to weight it down so that it does not wobble or topple over with your camera on top of it. Kind of a must with small kids around but a good idea for anyone.


Photo Editing Software

Even if you're taking good photos, your job will almost always require some manipulation of those photos to make them look the best you can. Professionals call this "post-production" and it includes things like cropping, rotating, adjusting lighting, contrast, midtones, saturation, etc., to make the image really pop. These tools make all those things easier.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is still the gold standard for photo editing - it's the most powerful tool available to manipulate your images and will give you more fine grained controls than anything else out there. Photoshop Elements is probably more than enough for you and it's a bit cheaper than regular Photoshop, too.

Adobe Lightroom

The tool people seem to love (but I have not tried) is Adobe Lightroom. I may have to invest in a license soon. If you're interested in giving it a shot, here's a great tutorial on how to use it from Marc at No Recipes.

Aviary via Flickr

I have a Flickr Pro account that I use to store my photos (well, that's one of the places I store them - always have a back up - more on that below!) and I end up doing some of my image manipulation in Aviary, the online tool they offer. They used to partner with Picnik which was definitely more powerful but Aviary is certainly more convenient than opening up Photoshop or Lightroom if you're in a rush.


Graphic Design

When I first started blogging way back in 2006, graphics were not such a big thing. But with the rise of Pinterest and Facebook, they've become a necessity. The good news is that you don't need to be a graphic designer to put together something that looks nice. There are a lot of tools available - many of them free or cheap and I'm sure there will be more. Here are a few of the ones I like.


Photoshop

I've had a copy of Adobe Photoshop for about ten years and still use it fairly often in combination with the other tools below. I took a one-day class many years ago that helped me get started and even though I barely scratch the surface of its functionality, I appreciate everything it offers me. You can buy a copy of Photoshop Elements more cheaply than full Photoshop and it does pretty much everything you'll need to do.


Canva

Canva is a pretty awesome web-based tool for creating graphics. It offers you the ability to choose from their many, many layouts (many or most of which are free) and pop in your own photos and text to make professional looking graphics. I find their font selection kind of limited but imagine that they'll end up expanding it.


PicMonkey

PicMonkey is another of my favorite online tools. Their free selection is fairly robust and they've got a lot of cool things to choose from and are always adding new fonts, backgrounds, filters, etc. I particularly love how their tool lets me choose from either their fonts or the ones installed on my computer since I've added a lot to my font library.


Photo Storage

If you're going to take a lot of digital photographs, it's best to have a safe way to store them.

Memory Card

First of all, you'll most likely want to get a larger memory card for your camera, especially if you take your images in RAW format or shoot videos. This SanDisk Extreme PRO memory card should do the trick nicely.


Back Up Drive/External Hard Drive

Then you'll want a back up hard drive to store them on. I use a WD Elements portable hard drive - it's small and connects via USB and gives me a whopping 2 Terrabytes of storage (you can get one that offers more storage, too, of course.)

External Storage

But since hard drives can and do crash and burn sometimes, it's a good idea to also store your files somewhere else. You can do this in "the cloud" if you wish. I use Flickr Pro or you could use Google's Picasa (it's free).

Or you can use one of the paid back-up services like iDrive which I used at my old job - I like that it gives you the choice of whether to back-up certain files and is unobtrusive - it just runs in the background. I've also used Carbonite but found it a bit clunkier and more annoying.

Food Styling

I'm not an expert in this but I have gleaned some lessons either the hard way or by reading about them from people who are experts. Things like:
  • Use small bowls and plates - it's much easier to make food look abundant if you're not filling a football field-sized container. 
  • Think about the story you're trying to tell with your photo and your food. Do you want to show a perfect muffin or would it be more compelling to show a half eaten muffin surrounded by crumbs? Bea at La Tartine Gourmande is really good at this! She's also got great, very charming props.
  • Be intentional about the mood you're striving for. And it need not be all sunshine and light - darker lighting can create great atmosphere.
  • Don't be afraid to mess things up - while perfect is impressive it can also be kind of boring and probably does not tell a very interesting story.
  • Including a human touch can bring your image to life - a hand in blurry motion, a fork swooping in for a bite, etc.
Instruction & Inspiration
More food styling tips from folks who are very good at it:
Some other sites and blogs that I just like looking at include:
You might also like:

No comments:

Post a Comment