Best Excuses for Why My Food Photography Sucks

Fun fact: I originally started blogging about food. At no time did I ever intend to be writing posts about The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or the time that my kid’s room smelled like butt. I really just wanted to share recipes with my family.

I thought that was a pretty good idea until I discovered the food blogging community, at which point I realized that I was a poser in the food blogging space.  Yes, I still blog recipes I try out from time to time, because I enjoy it. But one of my biggest limitations is, and always has been, my food photography.

Those damn food bloggers offer up numerous drool-worthy shots in every post. Tender bits of flaky bread dangling above a plate. Succulent fruit parfaits in pretty glasses. They can make a bowl of OATMEAL look good. When has your oatmeal ever looked good?

I find it much easier to make excuses for my craptastic food photography than to just own my lack of mad photog skillz.

So here are:

1. My house is devoid of natural light. I’m blaming this on the fact that our house is oriented north-south, and we only one measly window that faces east-west. The interior of the house is a gloomy, gray, hazy place. Kind of like Chicago 11 months and 15 days out of the year (the other 15 days of the year, people fry their white skin in the sun until it’s as red as a fire hydrant).

2. I don’t have cool plates. Or napkins. Or pretty table linens. It’s true. My plates suck. I have solid green plates, that look gray when I photograph them in my murky light. I have red Fiestaware plates that are super reflective and shiny. I have white plates that look okay, but when I make a beige-ish food it has a camouflage effect. I don’t have those perfectly patterned dishes that look right out of Pinterest. I don’t have cool rustic bowls and soup crocks that have a vintage patina. Table linens? Why? And…we don’t have napkins. We have our sleeves.

3. I haven’t read the instruction manual on my camera. I just take 100 photos and hope one turns out. Most of the time, I am 0 for 100, due to #1 and #2 above.

4. I don’t have a macro lens. My baked goods, which are delightful in person, look like corned beef hash without the right closeup lens.

5. Instagram needs more filters. When are they going to add an In Focus filter, a Filter To Fit The Entire Shot In The Screen, and a No, Your Food Does Not Look Like Alpo filter?

6. I don’t know how to plate well. Part of great food photography is not just what the food is, but how it’s presented. I don’t know how to arrange crap on a plate all fancy-schmancy like. Listen, I’m feeding a 6’5 carnivore and two rugrats. Your food gets slopped on a plate so I can sit my ass down and eat before my food is cold. And you’re lucky if it’s not on styrofoam. Fun fact #2: I don’t know how to dress well, either.

7. My silverware has spots all over it. I may be the only person who has stainless steel flatware with – you guessed it- stains. So if I want to add a fork or spoon to my picture – you know, because that’s what the awesome food bloggers do – it looks like a piece of rusted metal in the photo. Appetizing!

8. I don’t cook in the daylight. Maybe I should start the Vampire Food Blog. All food cooked after it gets dark and all photos of said food taken under the harsh glare of artificial lighting.

9. No matter where I stand, I get a shadow.  I don’t care where I am in my house, there is always a shadow on my food photos. Because of said nighttime cooking. This is called the Goth genre of cooking.

10.  I have no good outdoor backdrops. If I left my murky house during daylight hours to take photos, the choice of backdrops would be a) dying desert plants, b) garbage cans and recycling bins, c) concrete patio, d) grass with dog poo, e) hot tub that needs servicing or f) old wooden fence that is washed out and broken. Yum!

So that’s my list of excuses. And I’m sticking to it!  How’s YOUR food photography?

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Tagged as: food photography, My Neuroses