household items to improve your food photography~thursday things
Hiya food blogger peeps. Household items to improve your food photography is my fun little Thursday Things post for you guys today! It is another edition of my photography tips. This one is all about using inexpensive household items (you probably already have at home right now) that can help you to improve your food photography. These are so simple you’ll be amazed!
If you haven’t read my 8-tips for better food photography yet, make sure you cruise through that too. And I also have a list of food styling tools that can really help improve your food styling. Please make sure you leave a comment below letting me know what I left out. What simple household items do you use to make your food photography great? And as always I would love it if you shared this post.
~Katie
8 Household Items to Improve Your Food Photography
1. Salt: It’s not just for making your food taste good. It can also make beer foam. If you have a beer poured into a glass and it has been on set for a while, it probably looks pretty flat by the time you’ve got the composition and light how you want for the final photograph. To foam it up, you don’t have to add more beer. Just sprinkle a pinch of salt into the beer and it will start to bubble, creating a little head and bubbles to catch the light.
2. Aluminum Foil: Speaking of light in glasses. This is especially true of dark and moody shots, the light just won’t reflect though the glass. A smooth piece of foil propped behind the glass will reflect though the liquid and brighten it up.
3. Blue Fun Tak: A tiny ball of fun tak will hold a handle of a fork to the plate when it just won’t stay where you want it to stay. Just make sure the handle of the fork covers it completely from the camera’s view.
4. Thin white fabric: If you have ever sewed curtains, you probably have a bunch of this hanging around. It’s also known as muslin. Use it to soften harsh sunlight. I hang my sheet of muslin with push-pins from the window trim. I have a really thin one that I use when there is really low light. If you don’t have this on hand at home, you can find it at a fabric store and it is really inexpensive. You’ll just need a yard or two.
5. Black and white foam core boards: I use black foam core a lot now. Especially if I want a dark background. I use it to block the light from hitting my background. See all those yucky wrinkles in the fabric above left? Buh bye when I blocked the light with the foam core. It will help draw your eye forward to the subject. Also, black foam core really helps control the light for moody directional lighting in general. It is really great to play around with it. White foam core on the other hand is good for reflecting light back on the subject. This is called “bounce” and is great if you want a soft overall lighting feel. If you don’t have it at home, it is only a few dollars at a craft store. I have a few sheets of each.
6. A piece of white paper: You can use this to set your white balance in your camera. In the winter, have you noticed that the light is much more blue than in the summer? All of the photos I took in the winter came out blue before I learned about white balance. This is a setting in your camera. (You can also fix it in post processing too.) If the auto white balance is not working out, and usually it does a great job, you can override it by taking a picture of a white piece of paper. It has to fill the whole view finder, and has to be in the light you’re using. Then go into your settings in your camera, and tell it that you want it to be on “custom white balance” and that that image of the white paper is the one to use for it to figure out what “true white” is. If you’re ready to start using inexpensive studio lights, this will come in really handy.
7. Clips and clamps: I have worked with a lot of professional photographers, and every single one of them have a TON of clips and clamps on hand at all times. {My husband has a bunch of those orange ones in his wood shop.} They are great for rigging up backgrounds or attaching things to light stands. Or I also use a simple bull-dog clip to stand my white card for a tiny little bounce card. There is no end to the many uses of clips and clamps in photography.
8. A step ladder: I think it is so funny how much better my compositions became once I started keeping my step ladder in my photography space. All of a sudden, it was so much easier, and I had no excuse not to get my camera higher up to have an better vantage point. All of the shots stopped at three quarter range because my shrimpy little body was dictating where the camera could be anymore. Now I can set up my camera overhead on my tripod. The whole tripod goes on the table! And then I set up the step ladder right next to it. Or if I have my tripod set up at a high but not overhead angle, so that it is too tall for me to look though the viewfinder this is super helpful.
DISCLOSURE: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. That means, if you use that link to buy something from Amazon, I will earn a few pennies on the dollar at no additional cost to you. I only like to products I like and use myself.
Love these tips.. I’m a shortie too.. gonna have to try the step ladder thing 🙂
Yes do it for sure. The only draw back, is tripping over it when it isn’t in use. Ha ha! Thanks for leaving a comment Chrissy.
Thank you for the great tips! I am always looking for new ones. I’m so glad I found your site!
Dawn
Thank you for saying hello Dawn, and I hope you got a tip or two here. Cheers!
Thank you friend! I need all the tips I can get! I just don’t practice enough! It is so hard to get “that” shop!
I hope one of these tips comes in handy Rebecca. Thank you my dear!
These are great tips! I really need to clean out/completely declutter my apartment so I’ll have no more excuses for not implementing em’!
Thank you Farrah. So glad to know some of this was new information. Bet of luck on the cleaning. Ugh! But it will feel great when you’re done.
Thanks so much for this Katie. I’m totally stalking your archives…
Ha! So glad to hear it Arman!
AWESOME post! I have recently been trying to step up my food photography game so this is very helpful!
That is great Kaila. So glad to think one of these tips may have helped. Have a great day!
I’m so glad you talked about the black foam board to bounce dark light. And the tip on the white balance – thank you!! these are all great! Thanks for sharing!
I can’t believe I went so long without the black foam board. I have two, and they are always in use in my photo space. You can almost see the before and after demarcation in my work when I started using them.
wow i never heard of any of these tips! I am really trying to improve my food photography and these tips will def come in handy! It seems like the smallest things make a huge difference! Bookmarking this article! Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for letting me know this is helpful. Some of it seems goofy in a way, but I love knowing I am not the only one that thinks its worth mentioning.
Great tips and will definitely try some of these out in 2015!
So glad they help. Thank you so much for coming by for a visit.
great info! I’m in the process of getting my shear white fabric set up completed. Just ordered a tension rod for my window, so I can easily put up and take down the fabric. Do you have some recommendations on reflectors?
I have a collapsible two sided (gold and white) reflector. Check on B&H. The light here in Vermont tends to the cool side, so I chose a gold one. They also come in silver if you live somewhere nearer the equator. I went to a food styling workshop with Aran Goyoaga and she said where she lived in Florida (at the time) she couldn’t use the gold because it was too warm. Though all that said, the reflective side is often too much for me. I use it when I shoot interiors to bounce light into dark corners. I use my white foam board for bounce more often.
Wow Katie! I never thought household items can be used to improve the food’s appearance, I thought I had to use expensive equipment to achieve these kinds of photos. Thank you, you just saved me a whole lot of money! Keep up the good work!
Nice work Katie!I never thought household items can be used to improve the food’s appearance, I thought I had to use expensive equipment to achieve these kinds of results. Thank you for sharing your creativity!
Another great photography lesson from you! Going on vacation next week and going to try to absorb all this stuff so I can improve my pics on return. Especially loved the info on white balance–living in Maine near the ocean all my pics are blue tinged no matter what time of year, but definitely worse in the winter!
This is so good! Just made this as a last-minute lunch for today, and eating it right now! I didn’t have any red bell peppers, so I added tomatoes instead, and used frozen corn and canned black beans. I’m sure it’d taste even better fresh, but this is great for a quick meal! Thanks for sharing.