A Hack Photo Studio, and Attempts at Food Photography

I don't post photos from the kitchen here often, if ever. Food photography has always felt way out of my reach. I can wield my iPhone camera outside when I want to, but I have always been intimidated by the flashy props and chic styling that every food blogger seems to use, and baffled by how to harness the powers of natural lighting. My house is under giant trees. On most days, except perhaps in the summer, there is very little good natural light for taking pictures of food.

But. Recently, I vowed to dip my toes into the ocean. Now I can't even remember how it started, but the other day I found myself deep in the Google hole of food photography tips, mainly just trying to find out how to rig a hack studio for cheap.

My new "studio" is a hack of the hack and cost $23. A 500-watt halogen work light sits behind an eviscerated cardboard box plastered with a cut-up Value Village t-shirt stuck to the box with some double-sided stickies (from a box of stick-to-the-wall hangers that happen to pull paint off my walls and have been sitting on my desk since, um, we moved). Two big white pieces of cardboard act as reflectors.

I was kind of nervous as I set it up, remembering Pinterest art project disasters of years past. But amazingly, it worked--in that it provides a neutral, clean light source. A blank slate. Really, a whole new world: now that I have good light, I can fiddle with shooting photos of the recipes I make at home all the time, and then share them on the blog, which I've avoided doing purely because of the photo barrier.

I'm going to keep it low budget. Maybe I'll take a trip to Value Village for ten dollar's worth of props--some colorful dishes, some simple white plates, some metal measuring cups (mine are plastic and I don't like looking at them in real life, let alone a photo). But that's all. This is an iPhone camera type of studio.

So I like the light, but the whole food styling thing feels really foreign to me. Like, the photo above is so unnatural. That is not how I make eggs. I did not actually even make these eggs. I threw this together as a studio trial run at 8:30 last night and then put everything away in the fridge and went to bed. And because I know that this photo wasn't taken on a sunny morning, with coffee brewing and a pan heating up in the background and someone to enjoy the omelette with sitting at the table, hungry--but rather a cloudy darkening evening and a quiet house and the cat trying to climb into the light box, then scratching on the guest room door when I put him away--it doesn't have much magic to me. Part of the magic of a food photograph is that you're transported into a story--the food entices you into a scene, into someone else's kitchen or patio, which you probably don't even see, but the scene fools you into thinking it's there. The food becomes more than just food.

Happily, this morning, I made these very omelettes and Tim and I ate them while looking out at the misty pasture and drinking coffee. Is that the story this photo tells? I can't decide.