I’ve loved baking and cooking since I was little. My mom always made chocolate chip cookies from scratch, so those were one of the first things I ever learned to make. When I was a teenager I got really into photography. Almost every weekend I was begging my sisters or parents to take me to a local band’s show just so I could snap some photos. Even though my first blog was mostly about food, my love for photography and food never really crossed like I think I had hoped would happen naturally.
I do love sharing the occasional recipe on here when I come across something really good, but recently I was going through some of my old recipes and was really unhappy with the photos I had posted with most of them. I don’t expect myself to be some amazing food stylist and photographer, but I’ve really just been plain old lazy about my food photos – sometimes just rushing myself through them even when I didn’t have to.
One of my little goals this year is to really push myself with photography, and one of the things I already had in mind when making that goal was to really focus on improving my food photos. I love looking at food blogs with great photography, and even though this isn’t a food blog, when I do share recipes I love I want to be able to convey to everyone how great it really is.
I was experimenting with making a little cocktail last night and the house was pretty quiet so I decided it was time for me to really spend some time experimenting with a little styling and photography on it. Of course, the cocktail actually didn’t come out so well (much too strong, perhaps I’ll tweak and maybe share a recipe when I work it out) but I feel like I really did learn a lot from spending a good half hour doing nothing but taking photos of it. For one of the first times I really brought in some “props”, tried several different spots to play with lighting, and experimented with different angles. I took over 100 photos and the farther I got into looking at the photos, the better they really were (the ones up top are from the very end of my shooting). Now I’m really wandering why I never took this time before, why I’ve been so darn lazy!
I am certainly no Joy the Baker (and probably never will be), but I now realize how I need to do this more – slow down, think about things, experiment, and not afraid to try something new or different. Practice makes perfect – with everything, so why not dive in and have some fun?
Anyone else out there playing with food photography? Or really exploring any new area of photography!
Your pictures are amazing! I definitely hear you about feeling lazy when taking photos. I did get a new camera a few weeks ago. While it’s so much easier to just set it on automatic mode, I have been impressed with the types of pictures I get when I play around with the settings. You’ve inspired me to try harder with photography, too! Have a great day!
I do! Though it’s hard for me to be patient enough to get everything set up just right. :)You have a real eye for composition, these photos are really great! The second one is my favorite.
You inspire me to do the same. Occasionally I’ll spend time trying to learn how to style food, but most of the time I’m in the throes of actually cooking dinner in fading daylight.