Pretty and Not So Pretty Pictures

I had been eying this book for awhile and decided to take the plunge and pick up this book.

I’d like to think it’s the Bible of Food Styling because it’s 400 pages, chock full of information, tips, tricks, advice, troubleshooting information, and more.

Some interesting snapshots from the book:

The tools a professional food stylist keeps in her toolbox

How to work with difficult foods and make them look good on camera, i.e. melting, ugly, messy food

Unique Obstacles such as how to get bars out of pan and make them look pretty for the camera

Dealing with cookies of inconsistent size and color and recipe tweaks to make them more uniform

Working with Unattractive Food and how to beautify it

Making a slice of pie look perfect in pictures isn’t just slice and go. It’s toothpick and go.

How to Build a Soup (or burger, salad, ice cream cone, sandwich, you name it, it’s covered) for the camera

Everything you see in photos in magazines, ads, or in print was carefully staged and “built”.  Soup doesn’t just fall out of the ladle and into the bowl looking perfect.

Great care is taken to make peanut butter pretty and tips are given on how to spread it properly.

I bet most bloggers and blog readers could write the manual  “How to Spread Nut Butter”.

And this is the woman, Delores Custer, behind this amazing book.   

You name it, this book covers it.  I will cherish this book for decades.  Seriously, it’s that good.

And I have a lot of cookbooks and books complete with reviews on them all.

From my last post on Movin’ & Groovin’ with Caution, it was interesting to hear what things or people in your life you are a little gunshy or leery of, or that you proceed with caution around them.

Because they’re the pictures I’m most proud of to date, No Bake Vanilla Cake Batter Chocolate Truffles are the dessert du jour.

Questions:

1. Do you have any tips or tricks that have helped you take better photos? Not necessarily just food pictures either, but all types of photos.

I know photography isn’t everyone’s passion.  I never used to be  mine, but that has changed and I love it!

For anyone who has ever tried to take pictures of anything from food closeup shots to nature scenes to capturing another person’s essence, you know there is an art to getting what you see with your own two eyes in real life to translating that well in photographs.

Flowers, kids, cookies, your pets, or the drops of rain on the window… they never seem to look quite as good in photographs as they do in real life, unless real care is taken to preserve the shot.

My tips and tricks for getting the best shot are:

to take time with your shot.  Don’t rush if possible.  Easier to do with inanimate objects, of course.

take lots and lots of pictures, more than you ever think you’d need

walk around and capture your subject from all different angles, sides, and vantage points

resist using your flash, especially with food

don’t be afraid to get creative and sometimes what seems like it will look really silly or that it would “never work”, when you upload the pictures, it’s the setting, shot, or angle that you thought was the corniest that turns out to be the coolest.   This is also true in modeling.  The worse, unnatural, and awkward  a pose feels, that usually means the shot will turn out great!

And I am not an expert, not trying to be one, just sharing what I have learned, 25,000 pictures and two years later in my blogging career because before that, I didn’t take nearly as many pictures.

2. Do you think there are some things that are just ugly very hard to shoot and no matter how many times you shoot them, it’s just not pretty?

White foods such as bread, pasta, lasagna, noodles, sugar cookies, taco shells, all are so awesome tasting and can look wonderful in person, but white foods just don’t seem to photograph well for me.

Quesadillas (Vegan) taste great.  Look meh on camera.

Beans, lentils, chili, soups, also need to be careful with them or they look like brown slop.   Or you know what.

Vegan Chili tastes great, looks not so great

Vanilla Chia Seed Pudding is ugly in person and on camera!

And it’s a gray food which I think are ugly to begin with.

The Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding isn’t much better although chocolate anything is good.

And Raw Vegan Chocolate Coconut Snowballs aren’t the prettiest but you cannot go wrong on taste or simplicity of recipe with these.

5 minutes, cocoa powder, coconut, sweetener.  Despite the less than pretty exterior, they taste wonderfully.

Now that I have poked fun of my own food pictures, it’s your turn!   What subject matter or foods do you think are difficult to photograph well?

3. Do you have any ugly food pictures on your blog?

The majority of the pictures on my site I used to think looked “good” but now I go back and cringe at all my old photos.  And even some very recent ones.

I think all bloggers feel that way though!

We all have to start somewhere and it’s a journey, and evolution, and looking at the ugly ones makes me appreciate the better pictures.   Growth is a beautiful thing.

*Edited to Add*

Please Go Bid on Katie’s Vegan Blog Bake Sale for Japan items.  Dozens of bloggers are donating vegan baked goods and the bid proceeds go to the people of Japan.

I am donating Raw Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

Go Bid!