Everyone has their strong points and their weaker points when it comes to doing something they love right? Maybe you’re a photographer and you’re great and playing with light but super slow at editing. Maybe you work in a shop and are great at dealing with customers but struggle with bookkeeping. We all have our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to our jobs, right? My weakness…food styling. I know that I could be better at it if I would just take the time and have a little patience, but honestly, I don’t want to do either.
My friend, Melissa, however, loves her some styling. She loves props, she loves themes, she loves getting creative and making something that will photograph beautifully. I’m not at all embarrassed to admit that on more than one (or twenty) occasions, she’s received a text from me simply stating, #ijustwannatakepictures when I’ve become frustrated with styling.
So, I was super pleased when she agreed to help me with a monthly post about food styling. Trust me, friends, I’ll be learning just as much from this process as you will. I gave her an idea or subject for each month and she gave me a few pointers on how she would style for photos based on the idea. For January, the idea is, “how to style a simple and clean look but still keep it interesting”. January is all about clean slates, new beginnings, trashing the clutter, and starting fresh, so I figured this would be a good place to start.
Here is the response I got from my awesome friend who makes me smile all the time…
Simple & clean is my jam! Sometimes I let the food do the “interesting” part. White table cloth, basic/neutral tones of decor and napkins then, BAM! A stunning cake or pretty drink.
So, using that as my guide, that’s what I set out to do. For everything I used as a background or prop, I kept it neutral. If you’ve hung around here at all, you’ll know this is me stepping waaaaaaay out of my comfort zone. White everywhere? Brightness? I physically felt uncomfortable. But, in order to be well rounded, we have to do things that push us a little. Otherwise, we’ll get stuck in a rut. January is no time for ruts, people.
January light in the midwest is really well suited for dark and moody photography, so in order to get the crisp whiteness that I was after, I had to mess with my white balance a bit. (That’s a bit of foreshadowing…we’ll be discussing white balance soon.)
My goal was to keep the look simple and with very little in the way of distraction which allowed the delicious panettone to really shine. I sprinkled chocolate chips around my display in order to convey that there were chocolate chips in the cake. To someone not in the know, it could have looked like raisins.
So, there are a few ideas for styling any simple and clean displays you may be working on this month. Or any month, really. Clean and simple never goes out of style.
Little does Melissa know it, but I’m going to ask her to critique my styling and give me a few pointers on what she likes and what she may do differently. Gently, of course. If she’s too tough on me, I’ll probably cry. That would probably be the end of our food styling 101 posts…..
Happy Monday, everyone!
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