Every once in a while, I like to share recipes on my blog. Because I really do like to cook. And, I’ve had a few recipes that have been pinned a few times, which brings traffic to my blog. Win win, right?
But, today, as I was attempting to photograph another food item for another recipe share, I decided I could never become a food blogger. Like, EVER.
Here are the reasons why.
1. I like to eat food more than take pictures of it. Try photographing your food. Sounds simple enough, right? WRONG. Food can look disgusting if not taken with the right lighting. Take this delicious Tex-Mex meal that tasted SOOO good. I was enjoying this meal at one of my favorite restaurants on my last trip to Texas. I decided to send a picture to my husband to make him jealous. This is what it looked like.
Cat food. It looks a little bit like cat food.
2. I have a family to feed. I’m sure food bloggers feed their families too. But, when? Do they make dinner at 2 pm to get the right lighting for their picture? Or, do they cook at 10 am when their kids are in school so they don’t have little ones under their feet? They must actually re-heat their meals when they cook them at some other time, because my children definitely aren’t going to allow me a few extra minutes to take step-by-step pictures of the process. They are weeping under my feet declaring how hungry they are and there definitely isn’t time for waiting for the right lighting, or to show someone how to chop the broccoli just right.
3. I’m not good at action shots. I swear food bloggers must have an extra arm, or 4 hands, or be ambidextrous. Today, I tried to attempt a picture of a chip dipping into a dip, and got the dip all over my lens. It takes skills to do those action shots. And, food blogging requires action shots.
And manicures. Food blogging definitely requires manicures.
4. I’m not creative. I can follow a recipe most of the time. But, invent them? Forget it. That takes some serious talent. I’ve invented one or two that I can think of that have been a success over and over again in our family, but I think re-posting those every week wouldn’t build an audience that quickly. I did make this layered dip today that I thought was good. But, it’s SO not creative. I’ll share it anyway. It almost made it to a 7 layer dip, but ended up at 6. See? A food blogger fail.
PS-This is the recipe I was trying to photograph to get an “action shot” of the chip dipping above.
Un-Original 6 Layer Dip
Ingredients
- One can green chili refriend beans
- 1 large avocado smashed, add lemon and salt to taste
- Chobani Plain Greek Yogurt
- 2 Tomatoes Diced
- Cheddar Cheese, Grated
- Cilantro to Garnish
Layer ingredients in order. Eat with chips. DUH!
5. Food is not meant to be pretty, it’s meant to be eaten. For the most part, this is my motto in the kitchen.
So what if it doesn’t look good, it’s the taste that matters!! But, for blogging purposes, it has to look good too. I had this lentil curry soup recipe that tasted SO good, but looked so not good. I’m sure there is a way to make it look good with an extra cool camera, or photoshop skills (both of which I don’t have), but who has the time, or money, for that? Not me. I’m lucky if it is luke warm by the time it hits my mouth.
Honestly, my hat is off to you, food bloggers. I wish I could be you. I do. Your blogs look so pretty, and I’m sure pinterest is your best friend as it drives hundreds, maybe even thousands, to your blogs because people like me are all pinning….hoping….wishing that we could create pretty meals like you. But, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t. You work hard, and for that, I guess you deserve all the traffic. Keep it up, because I will keep pinning your hard work. And, eating it too.
I totally agree, I have to laugh when I see people in restaurants taking photos of their food. And I will never look at cat food the same way. Great Post!!
Thanks!
This is why I don’t like Mexican food…every meal, no matter where you go looks EXACTLY the same. Same wrapped up thing, some rice and some brown stuff that looks like wet cat food. But your dip pics actually look really good…you don’t give yourself enough credit! And why do people post what they are eating when they are out? I don’t don’t get that….who cares???!!!
I don’t know. I don’t get it either!! Yet, I did take that one picture, because I was so dang happy to be eating Texas Mexican food again!! Too bad it looked disgusting! 🙂
I had to laugh because I am a food blogger on hiatus! I remember how weird I felt when I took that first picture of my meal at a restaurant. Now it’s so common but I’m over it. I also don’t think I ever fit in w/ the average food blogger. I remember one foodie event where we were served clarified butter & lavender butter w/ bread. All the bloggers went crazy over the lavender butter. I thought it tasted like lotion. Of course no one liked the normal clarified butter…except me!
haha! That’s hilarious! Lavender butter sounds….like lotion!! I WISH I could be a food blogger. But, won’t ever pursue just that…..well, for the reasons mentioned above. 😉
Laughing over the concept of blogging same meal over and over. My two love refried beans but one always prefaces consumption with “who ate this first?”
Delightful.
Ha! That’s funny!! Thanks for calling it delightful! 🙂
Haha! I love #4…made me laugh! I loved the added tip to eat with chips. You may or may not have read my post about the end of the world and how I would eat nachos. 😀 Your dip looks delicious!
It really was delicious!!!
Love this! If I can get a hot, tasty, nutricious meal on the table each evening, that fills my kids up enough to stop them reaching for the chocolate bars an hour later, then I consider my job done. How it looks is not a factor. Husband works on presentation when he cooks (rare). He also leaves the kitchen looking like a disaster zone and takes twice as long as me to prepare a meal that the kids will still polish off in ten minutes. I have been known to photograph the edible works of art that some restaurants produce…
I so agree! Sometimes I MEAN to take pictures but then I eat it all before I remember. Oops.
Love it! Totally cat food (and yet, I bet totally delicious!!) That’s the beauty of writing things where I can use pics of my kids (hipstamatic makes everything look vaguely artistic, right?) and old photos of me as a kid (if it’s not blurry and yellowy, it’s not retro enough anyway.) Bu the occasional recipe is much appreciated. What are girlfriends for? Even virtual ones. 😉
I know exactly what you mean! I have lots of delicious recipes on my blog, but the photos are just terrible, so much so, that I’m sure it drives people away rather than attracting them to the blog. This year I decided to focus on other aspects of raising a family, with the occasional badly photographed recipe lol. I think it’s all in the camera and editing software, but seriously who has that much time?!!
Ha! That made me laugh. Driving them away….I’m pretty sure that’s what that picture of that mexican food did. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!!
Sadly, the broccoli is the best looking picture in this post! lol. You can do it though, with some more time and patience. I hate people who take pictures of their food in a restaurant, which is funny because I like pictures of food on Yelp or whatever so I can decide whether or not to eat at a certain place. Lol.
That’s the problem though!! I don’t have time or patience!!
Oh, hilarious. I want to make this a weekly themed blog now. “a picture of some food I ate that tasted great but looked gross” hahaha If I actually start it I will let you know!
haha! Sounds like I’d be a great contributor!! 🙂
I did a food post one time. I made the kids make it so I could take pictures. There were all sorts of extra lights brought in and I used one of those light box things I had to make so I could take the picture of the piece of cake. The whole thing took a lot of time and shenanigans. But I did get cake.
Oh gosh this really made me laugh. I used to think the same thing when I was working on all my other blogs. I always used my iPhone or cheap point and shoot camera for my photos and then wonder how all those pretty Pinterest and FoodGawker photos looked so amazing. I’ve always wanted to have a restaurant, coffehouse/bakery and knew for so many reasons that would never be. So after finishing my MBA last year I brainstormed business ideas because as a freelance writer I was sick of writing for other people and only making cents on the dollar of what I was worth. Thats how YUMeating came to be. I used graduation money to invest in a dSLR and slowly learned out to use it outside of manual mode. It is still a work in progress.
1. When I take photos in restaurants with my phone I use apps to filter light. That way my photos don’t have that grey paste look to them. I’ve only been brave enough to take my dSLR camera in while traveling and I play the ‘tourist’ card. Using flash and sitting by a window help a great deal and since I always sit in a booth , I am usually by a window.
2. I have a family too. I don’t do a lot of my cooking for the website during the week because I am too busy running the website. So weekdays are easy meals. Sometimes I will get creative and put together something for the website, but I do my big cooking on the weekends. I also cook all of my meals at home, since I work from home it makes it easier for me to make my own breakfast and lunch. My kitchen table is right in front of two windows. Here in MI it gets dark really early. I should use indoor photo lighting, but I don’t have one. So, I improvise. A lot of lights , Lightroom and Photoshop can be your best friends. I cook my meals at normal times. I take my photos either right before we all sit down to eat or I’ll make sure to save just enough for the photos and we all sit down to eat. I’ll photo after. I do tend to take photos as I go for Instagram. But other than that I don’t do a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ photos unless I have time.
I have a few recipes where we have vlogged the whole thing. But I soon realized that needed a video camera and not an iPhone.
3. I’m not good at them either. But, I just do a few. I’ve been slow to learn the tripod is my best friend. I had one and it broke, so I got one for Christmas, that I have yet to take out of the box and set up. I have issues. lol
4. I’m not super creative either. I am not sure I could invent and entire recipe, but I am sure somewhere along the way I have. When I read recipes if there are ingredients I cant eat, wont eat, dont have on hand, or have no interest in trying to cook with but the recipe is amazing I will try to figure out a why to make it with what I can use. Most work, but I do share my fails on the site too and have a good laugh.
5. It doesn’t have to be pretty. There are different types of food bloggers out there and trust me I have ran into them all. There are those that I consider the ‘food pornies’ who are those who really try to make everything pretty. These folks are more into food photography than cooking. You’ll see their photos on ChowStalker and FoodGawker and maybe a few shared by fans on Pinterest. Then there are the ‘in betweeners’ who are those who want pretty food, but they also want to have a good recipe whether its one of their own, inspired by, adapted from, or just straight out of the book. Then, there are just folks who want to share their recipe and honestly, whether it looks good or not, will still share it. ALL of these food folks do well with their own style. I’ve seen bloggers from all styles make money. So, if you want to blog about food and your photos arent food porn material – who cares? Just keep blogging and sharing because you’ll find that people from all categories will still visit as long as your recipe is yummy. Some of my photos are iPhone, some point and shoot, and nowadays most dSLR. But not all of those photos are good. You can tell my ‘i have time’ photos vs. my ‘people are starving/i’m starving’ photos. 🙂
Anyway, I just wanted to touch on them all. I loved your post!
Thank you!! That was an amazing, super long comment! 😉 It’s funny how much I’ve learned through this post about how you food bloggers do it. Maybe one day I’ll get there….
You are too funny! I found your from the SITS Tribe and so thankful. Can’t wait to learn more about you and from you!
Hysterical!!!! I feel the same way! My recipe pics are pretty terrible!! Stopping by from the new SITS tribe 🙂
Glad I’m not the only one! 🙂