Ep #37: Food Photography for Bloggers with Naomi Robinson

We live in a visual word, so producing the best photos possible for your site is important. In fact, Gerry Spiers described in his interview on how to increase traffic for your food blog, that making a concerted effort to improve his food photography was a key strategy. If you’re hoping to improve your food photography (and honestly…who isn’t), you’ll love these food photography for bloggers tips with Naomi Robinson. Listen in as Naomi, of the site Baker’s Royale, talks about how she shoots her stunning food photography, creates backgrounds, and more!

Food photography can feel like an ever-evolving art form. Everyone talks with embarrassment about their early shots. It’s almost like a right of passage we all go through in sharing recipes — we all begin with relatively bad photos. With time, practice, and desire, we get better.

I used my point-and-shoot for a good year-and-a-half before I bought my first DSLR. — Naomi Robinson

Naomi encourages food bloggers to not worry about spending a lot of money on fancy photography equipment, at least not at the beginning. She suggests using what you’ve got and learning your style and improving your skills and knowledge each and every day. This way, your photography becomes an expression of you.

Naomi has shared resources on food photography on her site. In addition she’s taught classes on food photography as well. Naomi tells her students that food photography is all about the light. Learn the light you have available to work with. Study it. Work it in your photos. Practice using shadows to set dramatic scenes. See how you like bright, colorful scenes as an alternative. Practice to get the look you’re going for.

Naomi says she studies the light in her house and knows the time of day (and even the time of year) that can give her the look she’s going for in her shots. She confesses to liking long shadows in her shots, but also admits to enjoying playing around with different looks. You can do the same. Just remember, your shots will have a different feel based on the time of day and the light that you’re shooting in.

Naomi also talks about some of her food photography props and backgrounds. Naomi makes some of her food photography backgrounds and you can too! All it takes are a couple of boards you can buy at Lowes and some paint and you can create a lot of great backgrounds. Naomi also uses drywall sheets that she has someone at the hardware store cut into smaller pieces. then she paints those in the colors she likes and voila! Instant beautiful backgrounds!

If you’re talking about props, Etsy can be your best friend! Naomi suggests some of her favorite search terms on sites like Etsy – like “chippy paint” – to help find those perfect props that make her photography stand out!

Naomi loves sharing tips about food photography, but we also discuss some of her favorite blogging tips as well. Learn more about food photography for bloggers today!

Featured Content – Food Photography for Bloggers with Naomi Robinson

Here are some of the highlights of my discussion with Naomi, where we discuss:

• Why Naomi started her food blog Baker’s Royale
• The change in Naomi’s career that helped her make the leap to full-time food blogger
• Naomi’s favorite advice for first developing your food photography skills
• How Naomi keeps a photo journal so she has a good idea of the light in her house and the mood it creates in her photos
• Naomi uses Photoshop to track data on particular photos too
• Naomi emphasizes really understanding your post editing process – that’s where the magic happens
• Naomi describes why she is constantly switching up her style
• Naomi talks about how she creates some of her favorite food photography backgrounds
• Naomi shares about her food blogging process
• Do you wonder how to keep the magic of what you love in food blogging when it becomes your job? Naomi answers this question!
• Naomi talks about why she loves her favorite social media site, you guessed it, Instagram!

Show Notes

This episode includes references to some resources you might find interesting. Here they are:

• Check out Naomi’s site: Baker’s Royale
• Here are Naomi’s posts on food photography tips: Food Photography I, Food Photography II, Food Photography Props Guide
• Give a shout-out to Naomi and connect with her via Twitter and Instagram!
• Naomi’s favorite apps on her phone are: Snapseed App and PicTacGo
• Naomi recommends Etsy as a great place to find food photography props.
• We mention the Chopped Podcast episode with Matt Armendariz talking about improving your food photography skills
• The food blogging community lost a true gem last week when Joan Hayes of Chocolate Chocolate and More died. Joan’s sister recently wrote a a post talking about Joan and what will be happening with the site. Joan was such a leader within the community, encouraging others with advice and laughter. We’re asking folks to go to Joan’s site to keep her dream of a successful food blog going. Thanks to everyone in the food blog community who has rallied around Joan’s family to help them during this time of loss.
• Connect with Chopped Academy Online:  Instagram  | Twitter
• Connect with Marly: Namely Marly |  Instagram  | Twitter
• Production, music, graphic art & sound design by Shawn Beelman

Announcements

1. Learn about future Chopped Podcast episodes by subscribing to the ChoppedCon newsletter. Just add your email in the subscribe section at the bottom of this page. You’ll be glad you did!
2. Tickets for the 2015 Chopped Conference are available. You can also attend a Food Photography Workshop with Matt Armendariz or participate in the dynamic Food Blog Success Summit. Take your food blog to the next level…learn more and buy your tickets today!

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