429: Tips for Styling, Editing, and Monetizing Food Photography with Rachel Korinek

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Hey there.

This is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro team and you are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. Today on the podcast, we're welcoming back Rachel Korenick from two Love Studio. Rachel was on the Food Blogger Pro podcast almost five years ago and she's back today to chat more about food photography and being an entrepreneur as a food photographer. Rachel has a background as an educator and you can definitely tell in this interview and when she chats about food photography because she's just so good at explaining all sorts of different concepts, especially food photography, which can sometimes be tricky to chat about on a podcast. She's really thoughtful about explaining the concepts and walking you through it step by step. In this interview, Rachel chats more about how she got into a career in food photography and what the different seasons have looked like in her business. She answers some listener questions that listeners to this podcast submitted about three core edits she recommends for editing food photographs, her recommendations for Background props and tips for using your phone for food photography. She also chats more about some of the common mistakes she sees food photographers making and her tips for styling hard to style foods. One quick note here. Rachel was kind enough to send a couple photographs that she's taken that illustrate the point she talks through in the podcast. So she has two photographs that will be in the show notes, and she mentions them specifically in the episode. So if you'd like a visual for what she's talking about, make sure to head over to the show notes at Food BloggerPro podcast to read more about that. It's a really awesome interview. We always love having Rachel on the podcast, so I'm just gonna let Bjork take it away.

Rachel, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you. I can't believe it's been, you know, close to five years since I was at home.

Five years, probably nothing has changed in either of our lives. Very similar to what it was in 2018.

Yeah, time goes so complete.

So no, we, we. The funny thing is, like, so much has changed, and yet here we are still doing very similar things. We're in this world of talking to people who are really good in these specific areas. For you, that's food photography, sharing that with people who are creating things online in the area of food or recipe content. And so that's what we're going to be focusing on today, is talking about all things food photography. And it's a really important part of what we do, and it's a world that you're in. So for those who didn't get to listen to that episode five years ago, can you talk about how you got into food photography?

Yeah, I sort of fell into food photography. Like a lot of us, we don't realize that food photography is a thing. If you talk to people who don't know, you know, they're sort of really astounded that this is something that you can get paid to do. But, like, when you look around everywhere, there's photos of food. So I was still one of those people that just sort of stumbled across a magazine and. And realized that this was something that really interested me because I had started to like. Like, everybody does create a million blogs about stuff that nobody cares about, you know, and I was cooking and taking photos of that, and really seeing that that was sort of something that interested me. And at the time, I was working as an accountant for a retail company, and they wanted to promote me. And I just remember being like, this is not what I want to do. I really want to give this food photography thing a go.

So, you know, it's bad when they're like, we want to promote you and you're like, yeah, I know, don't want to be promoted.

I know. And if I'm honest, I probably cried because I was like, you know, this is, I really don't want this. But this seems crazy because like this is what people want, you know, they want, you know, a career and a promotion. And here am I going to throw it all in to try this food photography thing that people thought and you.

Could see like, like this path, like of success. Okay, if I do this 10 years, 20 years, this is where I'll be. I don't want to be there. And so that was kind of the moment where you looked and you're like, what if I went down this other path?

Yeah, I really felt like I just had to give it a go. Like if I looked back on my life and it just, it didn't work out, I really was like, I just have to give it a go, you know, and that was like 12 years ago. So. Yeah, yeah.

When you say you cried, was it like, shoot, I have to make this decision or like, what was that moment?

It was probably a bit of relief of I really wanted to give this thing a go. And there was this defining line of, are you going to take this promotion? Because you can't really work on them part time each. So it was really, I guess this relief of this sign of what you really have to give this a go.

And having that clear picture then and saying, okay, there's some relief here. You've maybe been kind of wrestling with the decision now, you know, what did that look like to branch out in on that new path and take a step into being an entrepreneur?

It was very hard.

Yeah.

And I think it's easy to look on social media because people, it seems from the outside that things are really easy. And it was probably about five years of stop start because life happened. There was various things that happened, you know, my, then like my husband, now husband lost a visa. Like we had some family death in the family and illness. And so there was lots of stopping and starting, you know, and that can be disheartening because you, you'd really try to get this thing going. But I think it's just when I look back, you know, life does happen. You have to work things on sometimes slowly. So getting over that hump essentially then things just started to sort of come my way.

Yeah, it's. I was just watching a video yesterday, there's a, he's a expert on search engine optimization, but he kind of creates general business content. Now his name is Brian Dean. He had a psycho backlinko, but he was talking about this company that he launched and he was like, what I realized is that I really needed to enjoy or find passion in the thing I was doing because it takes a long time to, for it to catch on. And that's not always true. Like sometimes you catch something and it happens right away. And a lot of times from the outside you hear about those stories and it can seem like that's the norm, but I think it's the exception. One in a thousand, one in ten thousand. What you don't hear about a lot is people who just continue to show up, they grind, they make a little progress, they go to sleep, they get up, they have a setback. And he talked about five years. Yeah, and he talked about five years. And for you said it five years. It's kind of interesting. Another quick anecdote story that I heard somebody say is he's an entrepreneur. And he said, I feel like I'm taking in a five day week. I feel like I'm taking one step back every day and on the fifth day I take five steps forward. And he used that as an analogy for like business essentially. And I think it's helpful to remind ourselves of other people who are in it that that's the norm. Because sometimes, exactly like you said on social, you can look at it and people are like, deep, deep, dude. Like, I'm just being super successful trying to work.

And I think too, even when like I'm sort of facing that right now, like I've had success and sort of like plateauing now and it's like, what is the next thing that's coming? You don't, I don't necessarily always know what that answer is too, but I guess I've just looked back and I'm like, the one thing that I can rely on is getting up and trying again and keep moving forward and trying things. It's like really the only thing that we can control. And so even people who look super successful will still have some setbacks or plateaus that aren't always visible either. So.

Totally. Yeah. And. And there's those. What I've seen is there's personal seasons of reinvention and then there's also industry seasons of reinvention where we're in this world where it changes relatively quickly. It's not like, you know, in the building that we're in, there's a frame shop. And so like, that business looks relatively similar today compared to what it did 10 years ago. Maybe you're marketing a little bit different or, you know, tools are a little bit different. But for us, doing media and content online 10 years ago looks very different than what it does today.

So I feel like even two years.

Ago is, yeah, you have this like, person, this industry reinvention, where suddenly like, you're playing a different game and you need to decide, do I want to show up and play this game? Because it's a different game that I was playing 10 years ago. And for some people it's a great fit, for others it's not. And then there's also personal seasons of reinvention where like, things change. You have a baby, you know, in your life, you have a young one, we have two girls. Like, so you have that personal season of reinvention. So for you, what do you feel like? Some reflections. I'd be interested to hear you talk about those seasons of success. Like you said, I've had some stretches where I felt really successful. What did that look like? And then would be interested in the seasons of reinvention. And it sounds like maybe that's a season now. So.

Yeah, I mean, I think the success that I had was because I followed what I wanted to do. And it came out of like that five year grind of just feeling like it was setbacks and not getting where I wanted to and not making a lot of money, which is really hard when you work, you know, super hard. And so I just really wanted to follow exactly what I wanted to do. And that was like, types of clients that I wanted or, you know, teaching. Like, I did my editing courses, so I was really like focused on the things I wanted to do. And I think it showed because like you said, you show up time and time again because you really love to do those things. And so that was. That's sort of going well, you know, and then you get to a point where it's like you've created all these ideas that you had and like, what's next? Waiting for that next idea or the next level, you know, like potentially instead of just shooting by myself, it might look like shooting with teams or for like larger clients and things like that. So. So I'm just in a space where I feel like I know the answers will come. And I find even though this is super frustrating, the more I try to find that answer, like, the harder it is to find. You sort of just have to keep, you know, I guess your hands in the pie and trying different things, and then eventually that answer, like, if you trust, will come. So, like, I have a few ideas of, like, things I still want to achieve in my career, so I guess I'm just sort of being like, I know those are things I want to do, so focusing on getting those done. But like you said, I had a baby this year, so like, now I'm having to work slower, so those things are probably going to take a little bit longer, which is not what I'm used to. I'm used to being able to, like, just focus on myself and put a lot of work into it. So I think there's a little bit of reinventing myself. But also, you know, the industry, even just in six months with AI and all this stuff coming out, it's hard to know exactly how those things are going to play out into what I essentially would like to do. But again, like, I'm focusing on. I'm really enjoying creating YouTube videos and I'm working with my husband and we create those together. And that's really fun. So I'm sort of like, I'm having a lot of fun doing that. I know in the past, the things that I've been passionate about have always helped me be successful. So I think that's really lucky if you have those things. So that's kind of just why I'm focusing on.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. So, yeah, you had talked about your courses. That was one of the things that you'd done. Teaching people about all the different ins and outs of food. Photography have also done client work a little bit. Can you talk about kind of the. Maybe the different stages of your business and what those look like in terms of working with clients, working with brands, doing course content? Like, how did things evolve for you as a photography professional?

I think the teaching, like, a lot of people, maybe not a lot of people, but people see teaching as like, potentially something they can do or maybe they enjoy it. For me, I guess because I had a background in teaching, Like, I went to university to do a teaching degree. It was always something that I was really passionate in. And I think it just evolved naturally because I really started my food photography blog because I wasn't finding the things that I needed to learn online. So I was, you know, learning those things myself and then writing and putting it out there for others to learn. So I think it was a great.

Way to do it. Like, yeah, for people who are learning a thing, to learn and document is awesome.

Like, so I think it was really natural the two things were really natural. And so, you know, because I have these two elements of my business, I can sort of pick and choose what I like, the types of clients I wanted, or the types of brands that I wanted to work with, or even like the speaking gigs that I do on Dart take. So I think it just, again, was like a really natural progression how that happened.

Yep, that makes sense. So you have. And this is why it's great to interview people like this, because you have kind of the heart of a teacher, because that's kind of what you did. But you also have this deep knowledge in photography due to not only thinking about how you can teach it to people, but also going through the process of working with clients and. And doing shoots. And so let's talk about some of the things that you've learned. I think there's going to be a lot of things that we can pass along to people specific to best practices. You know, even for Pinch of Yam, we're continuing to. And this is really. Lindsay continuing to think about evolving the process, making it more efficient, but still prioritizing pictures because they're so important. But how do we also get, like, process shots in. So we're always evolving and tweaking our systems.

Yes.

So let's talk through some of those questions that maybe people can take some takeaways from, starting with that efficiency kind of category. Thinking about doing multiple shoots in a day. I just did a live Q and A with Lindsay on in Food Blogger Pro, and one of the questions that somebody asked was like, how do you. What's your advice for, like, getting more done or something like that? And Lindsey was like, batching. So when you think of doing multiple shoots in a day, how do you go about doing that? Like, what does it look like to do that? Well, knowing that there's a lot of variables involved.

Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of people listening will be. Will be running a food blog. So there's probably a couple of different types, but there'll be larger food blogs that have teams. But then there'll also be a lot of us who just work on our own. So I tend to do both depending on who the client is, like, the budget, things like that. I think it's always more challenging when you have multiple shoots in a day and you work by yourself. So, I mean, I don't think it's any secret that you have to be super organized if you're doing multiple shoots in a day. And I sort of. If I'm working on my own I can probably shoot four to six recipes in a day on my own. You know, if you are doing, if a client needs more like 8 to 10, you know, I would need an assistant, someone to help me with food prep, cleanup and it probably would depend on the complexity of the recipes as well. So you know, when you're shooting for a client, like they have, they're going to pay you for like a certain number of days or hours or whatever recipes. So usually, you know, we can take an example of. I had a client and I would do monthly recipes for them. So they can put it in like an ebook and they could share it, you know, on their social. And they had an app and things like that. So she would send me the recipes for a specific month and I would go ahead and basically when I got the recipes, I would go through them. I try to categorize them into like, if you had a four day shoot and I'm shooting multiple recipes, I would try to break it up into like a mix of easy and complex together. Because you don't want to have a day where you have like six really tough recipes to get through. You kind of want to have a mix that's going to help you feel the time.

Cereal. You have like a bowl of cereal that you're shooting kind of on the easy end.

You know, like sometimes it'll be like a vinaigrette or a dip, really easy. A smoothie, super easy because it doesn't take as much prep time as well. So a lot of people, like food bloggers will know which are their easier recipes. So I try to have a combination of both of those to help me, you know, get to the time constraints of the day. I always think, you know, after for doing this 10 plus years, this, @ least this is true for me. The day of the shoot starts out quite slow and then you kind of get into some momentum and it ends like you can shoot things quicker essentially because you'll, you'll set up, maybe you'll tweak the lighting at the beginning and all those things will help you with the shoot as the day goes on. So I try to pick like a couple of easy recipes that I can start off with to just get.

Those shots and almost like warming up a little.

Bit. Yeah, exactly. Under your belt. And then finish off with an easy one at the end of the day as well. Because usually like, you know, you're tired and it's, it's good to like be like, okay, it's the last one and it's not going to be super.

Challenging. And your brain is at that point where you've made so many decisions and you feel like fatigued. It's like, let's just do something.

Easy. Exactly. Yeah. So I think those are things like always kind of help in terms of like the day. And then it comes down to like, is there things that you can do to prep for recipes which like a lot of food bloggers probably are really good at. So you know, are there things that you need to. Can you do something the night before, like soups? I find I can always cook the night before just to help me out on the day because they're usually pretty easy to reheat. Or you know, are there little things like, okay, we have three recipes today and they all require us to use like diced, you know, like onion for example. So it's just quicker to cut that onion once and then save, you know, for different recipes and having to do it three separate times. So like little things like that, I'll scan the recipes to see where things are going and sort of create some kind of list in my head or add those together one after the other so I can sort of use them and help speed up things. Especially if you're working on your own, that I find that that really.

Helps. Yeah. How about if you are at the point, let's say you're working on your own. One of the things that I hear my friend who's in video production talk a lot about is pre production. How much of the shoot day? So let's say you do it eight hour day and you're doing four to six recipes on your own. How much of that is pre production? Like you thinking about what's gonna happen? Getting groceries ahead of.

Time.

Yeah. Versus what actually happens the day.

Of. I think it depends on number of recipes too. But like obviously if you're doing six recipes, you've got quite a big grocery shop to do. I know other photographers who will hire someone to help them with those pre production days. Or like if you've got a food stylist, you know, if you're shooting for a cookbook or something, stylists will usually do those things. But if you're like working on your own and you're like the core person in your business, you'll be grocery shopping. So there's that element of it. There is also depends on the client too. But like I usually will go through and save a whole bunch of images to a mood board for each recipe to give me some ideas. I will pick backgrounds and props that I want to use at least if not all, all of the recipes, like a good chunk of them because. And sometimes I'll end up changing it on the day. But those first like three recipes, I'll have backgrounds and props selected the day before so I can really just jump straight into it. Sometimes, you know, there's like a fridge clean out. That's got to happen, you know, to get all the recipes in. And then, you know, I will look at certain recipes. Like again, soups were a great one. I would definitely cook them the night before or sometimes ground beef can be cooked the night before and just kind of helping prep myself for the day when there's going to be like a lot of things going.

On. Yeah, yeah, you, you had mentioned this. But somebody to go out and like if there's a lot of grocery shopping that has to happen a lot of times that being hired out. What would be the first hires that you would make if you wanted to be efficient with your food photography, your shoot days? My guess is one of the early ones would be somebody to help kind of the gopher go for this, go for that. But also probably somebody who could understand maybe some of the recipe prep type.

Stuff. Exactly.

Yeah. So what, what general advice would you have for somebody who's maybe at the point where they've kind of done it on their own and now they have a little bit of disposable income within their business or personally that they want to spend on their business and they say, hey, I can justify hiring somebody. It's not like they're going to hire the photographer because that would be more expensive, but they're going to hire somebody who's going to come and support. What would those support elements look.

Like? I think there's two things. I think there's, there's something that you really dislike doing that is always a good thing to hire out for. Like sometimes I really like marketing and I love my email list, but I don't love like going in and putting those things in the back end. Like I can get somebody else to do.

That.

Right. I think for me sometimes I like the shopping. But like if you have a lot of recipes all the time, it's actually better. My time is worth being used to edit photos rather than like go shopping. So definitely you could outsource the groceries. Having someone help you with food prep I think as well is a skill that most people can do. Like you might need to give them some direction or usually if I'm styling, I'll want to do the final style. But like, you know, I'll get someone to dice things up or do the cleanup and the washing up prep. And usually I'd like to try and hire someone who might be starting out in food photography for myself so they can sort of see the process and learn a little bit on the job as well. So I found those things to be great in terms of a photo assistant. They might be probably a bit more expensive than some. Someone who's just doing groceries and food prep, but you can, you know, they can help you. They should have some sort of understanding of photography. You know, they can help you tether or check, you know, the photos in focus. They should really be like someone who can say to you the lighting is like, maybe too bright or things are getting too hot. And they can help you change some of those things. So, like, they should be, I guess, contributing to the shoot rather than you just pointing around telling them, telling them what to.

Do. Yeah, yeah. It's like another brain versus just another body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the. This friend, he. So he has a. He's done a couple documentaries. Some of them are on Netflix. I've referenced him a few times, but to give him a little shout out. One of them's coming out in a little bit. I think it'll be called bitconned on Netflix. The other one is Pez Outlaw, and then the last one is Legend of Cocaine island. So people can check those out to see these documentaries. But one of the things he always talks about is, like, when he goes on these shoots. Amazing. It's amazing how many people are.

There? Oh, my gosh.

Yes. There's like, you know, somebody to do makeup. There's somebody to do the. Doesn't touch the cameras, but just tells the cameras what to do and how to focus. And then there's super neat. One person to just like focus the camera and one person to hold the light. And so I think if nothing else, I just want to give some affirmation to anybody who's out there shooting on their own video or photography. Because you're doing a lot of jobs. You're doing food styling, photography, editing, you know, recipe. You have to understand the recipe itself. You're having to create great, great recipe content. So it's a lot that people are.

Doing.

Exactly. And that people are having to.

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Episode. How about on the food styling side of things, knowing that that's something that you do as well. Talking about multiple jobs, what are some common mistakes that you see people make? Because that obviously is such a huge part of it. You can take a great picture, but if it's not styled well, it's not going to look.

Great. Yeah. So like that, you know, sometimes people are like, well, what do I do with this food that's really ugly? And you know, I. There's one food, that recipe that stands out in my mind and it was like chicken and cheese wrapped in a rice paper, you know, and then air fried. And it, honestly, it's. There's not much you can do with that. You know, like it's a clear tube that has nothing.

Redeeming.

Yeah. About.

It.

Yeah. And so what I always, always fall back on is like, if you have great lighting, you can almost make anything look good. Right. So anytime I have really, really tricky food. It's not that you want to distract the viewer from the food with like props and backgrounds, but they can really be a nice support to help soften the blow, I guess, essentially, like, you know, that that's not the prettiest food in the world. So I think there are little tricks like that you can do. But always, you know, if you can get your lighting done really nicely, you can, you can really make ugly food shine. But there's a lot of things I like, you know, like to think about with food. You know, you've got your composition of the whole scene, but then you have like, are you thinking about Any composition theories or techniques that you can bring to actually styling the food. So, you know, anytime I have a client, you know, I'll go through all the recipes and I'll be thinking about, okay, we've got a lot of brown in this dish. There is a photo that, that's in the show notes. It was like a beef tinga. And like, it's. It's really just beef, onions and tomatoes that you can see in the actual shot. And that's just. It's a lot of heavy, a lot of brown. Depending on how you cut the onions, you've got a similar shape to all of those three ingredients. So for me looking at that, it was like, okay, what can I do to make this look pretty? And if I need to go back to the client, you know, if you're running a food blog, you probably have a little bit more autonomy over that. But I would ask the client, is it okay if I actually change the cut of the onion? You know, you don't want to make it so different that it's going to cause a problem to actually cook the recipe. But, you know, if they've asked you to finely dice it, you might see if you can do like thin slices that are roughly around the same size just to break up some of those different shapes that are showing in there. I'll ask, you know, are there garnishes, like any herbs or stuff that I can add at the end, or, you know, sprinkling of parmesan cheese or something like that. And, you know, if all those things are sort of a no, then I try to lean on, you know, can we add side dishes to this to make it look more interesting or like more of a scene or how can we not just focus on that? There's another photo in the show notes where I made. And these are both client shots, but I did meatloaf. So meatloaf's another tough one. Again, just totally just the shape. Everything's kind of mushed in there. So I was thinking, like this one we didn't make so much in a loaf shape. We actually made it in like a cake or like a brand brownie sort of pan like that, you know, an eight by eight. So I was thinking, like, I'm going to cut it into interesting. I mean, it's just a square, but like cut it and sort of move them around on a, on a board. Make sure that I have some of the sauce on top that picks up a little bit of shine and so it's not looking dry. Suddenly you've cut it in a way that might be different to what you would see other recipes. So just thinking about a few little things like that can really take a dish, you know, from maybe like a one to a.

Seven. Yeah. And it's interesting. You know, a lot of it, it feels like my dad was an art teacher, but a lot of it is almost kind of the different elements of art. It's contrast, it's focal points, it's complimentary colors, like all of those things, you're thinking about putting those things together and it's just that food is your canvas for what you're.

Using. Yeah.

Yep. So even for people to review some of those, like standards of art, it feels like it would be a.

Helpful.

Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. So you can apply that to like the whole composition that you're putting. You know, you'll have the hero dish and a side dish and maybe a glass of water or, you know, a napkin. So you can think about it that way. But I also encourage you to think about, take those elements and apply it to like the. Just the food. If you were just shooting, you know, a bowl of ground beef, how can you just apply those to that specifically? Is really how I try to think about.

It. Yeah. You talked about lighting and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on artificial lighting. Is that primarily what you're shooting with? Do you use natural light and if artificial light, what would your advice be for people who want to create kind of a consistent look? Yeah, in everything. In terms of like where you're positioning the lights, what type of lights, things like.

That. Yeah. Like a lot of us, I started off doing natural light and I always recommend mastering natural light before you move on to artificial. Artificial can be a jump because again, you have to create it from scratch. And artificial light is one of those things where if you don't have great tools, you won't have a great quality of light. So sometimes people have a small budget, they start out with artificial light and it is quite challenging. I sort of shoot artificial light nine and a half times out of ten these days because I love the challenge of being able to create the exact light that I want. I can shoot any time of the day and it can be very consistent. So again, that's another key to shooting multiple recipes in a day. I can have a setup, it's not quite set and forget, but like you can really motor through and know that's going to be consistent. So I do have a YouTube video. It's like a 30 minute free tutorial on my go to light setup. And I wanted to show people that one what you can do in a small space, but how you can replicate like gorgeous, beautiful, big window light with just one light. So I'm sure we can link to that if people are interested in checking that.

Out.

Yep. The thing about, you know, I, I would say use the light that you have. So both lighting types can be really beautiful. You know, as an Australian being in Australia, when I first started out, the lighting is very different down there to how it is in North America, especially in winter. And when I moved here, I was like, oh, I can see, see why people complain about, you know, certain times of the year. So it can really help you get out of a tricky spot. And especially if you have like a food blog and you want a very similar aesthetic that you can shoot all year round for your blog as well. That's where artificial light can really help.

You. Yeah. Especially if you're working a normal job and then you get home at 5 and you have like 15 minutes to do a shoot. When it's in the middle of the winter, like the light disappears so.

Quick. Yeah. Like, it's great if you have a space or, you know, maybe that's a room in your house or whatever. You can literally just leave the setup there and you get home, turn it on, you know, it's going to be reliable. Then you can focus on things like composition or for food blog, you can comp. You can focus on really making sure that the viewer is going to see how they can, you know, cook or, you know, process shots, things like that to help the end user. Because it's a little bit different to a food blog to. Than to a client. So like, you want to make sure that people landing on your blog understand how to cook. And you know, there's some really great blogs out there who do fabulous pro shirt shots. And I'm a good cook, but I still appreciate seeing those, you know, like, it really helps me, you know, understand, oh, this is what it should look like and that's working and.

Whatnot. Yep. So one of the things that I think is great about this world is in this world, meaning like people who get into creating content online, social media, or perhaps it's on a blog is a lot of times it can be an avenue into another profession. It sounds like that. Is that a little bit of what it was for you. Like you had a site, you experimented with publishing content online and then realized like photography was really what you loved about it and then built a business around that. Is that true? Somewhat or not at.

All? Yeah, yeah, no, I think so. And it's interesting when people, you know, you're putting it out there, and then, you know, you get your first client, you're like, oh, I can really do this. And, yeah, maybe you'll add new skills. Like, currently I'm doing video and like, where does that lead? So I think, yeah, you sort of, like, have this, I guess, a base, and then you just start adding your skills and you see what you like doing and then you follow those passions. And, you know, a lot of us wear so many different hats that sometimes I think, like, oh, you know, could I get a job in marketing, you know, or consulting? So, like, there's many ways, especially if you're interested in those things that you. I guess your business evolves and might take paths that you never even imagined it.

Would. There's a. There's a conversation we're having. We're talking with this. It's probably like a Fortune 50 company. They're kind of beta testing one of these things. We're kind of helping out with. Princh of Yam and Lindsey was giving some product feedback and he responded back. He's like, if you ever needed a job in, like, product hit product development, like, let us know. But it's. It's part of. Built into what we do, and you kind of need it to be successful, these different elements. So kind of what I was getting at with that is one of the things I'm constantly trying to bring up on the podcast is this, that what we're after. It might. What we think we're after might not always be the end result of where we. Where we get. And some of us get in, we start a blog and then we're like, actually, we really love developing the website and that becomes the thing that we do. Or we create content online and we're like, actually, we love to do photography or video for people who are on that path. I love photography. I love video. That's actually something I really want to do. I want to do more of that. Maybe I don't even need to have my own thing. I could just do it for other people. How would you recommend those people find their first clients or the first brand to work with if they want to secure those deals? And what did you learn about sales?

Really?

Yeah. Marketing and sales as it relates to working with a brand or.

Company? I think it's. It is. It has changed since when I first started, and in some ways, potentially it's harder because there's a lot more People doing it. But in a lot of ways there's more avenues for you to share what you're doing. There's like one brand specifically that I really want to work with, and it's a matter of just being like, I'm going to create the content to show them that I can do the job that I ultimately want to get. And so sometimes there's two thoughts on that, that people are like, you know, you don't want to be creating content for them that's free. And I'm not really creating it for them, I'm creating it for me, you know, and that could be like, am I teaching something or am I learning a new recipe or am I learning how to use a new piece of equipment? And you can target brands within those things, you know, so maybe it's, you know, lighting that I want to work out for myself and my portfolio, my clients, but I could also work with a, you know, a brand of lighting. So I could be not only shooting with that and showing the company what I can do, but I could also be teaching other people, so showing them the range of skills that I.

Have.

Yeah. So. And sometimes, you know, when we start out and you look at the people that inspire you, sometimes you feel like you should work with the brands that they're working with because maybe they're cool brands or they're large brands, but when you get down the rabbit hole, you might think, you know, actually they're not the brands that I want to work with. So it's always, I think, like, like we've said before is coming back to do you enjoy doing that specific thing? Because sometimes I've spoken to a brand and like actually working with them took three years for whatever it is. And it's like, can you consistently stay in front of those people for three years? And the answer is yes, if you're interested in passionate about that and you sort of going to do it anyway. But if you're not, that's very hard to.

Sustain. Yeah. If it feels like a total energy suck every time you're doing it, then it's going to feel like a long three years. But if it's a brand you love that you're going to be talking about, thinking about anyways, it's very.

Different.

Yeah. Yeah. I had an interesting conversation with a connection who's in a different industry, completely different than the food world, and we're talking about their. But. But essentially online media. And he was talking about his process for sales and it's a really big company sponsor content Type stuff, working with brands. And he. I was like, how much of it is inbound versus outbound? He's like, oh, 95% is outbound. It's us pursuing brands, pursuing companies. It's having a database of all of our contacts, following up with them occasionally. And I thought it was interesting because a lot of us, I think, myself included, assume you get really good at something and then just inbound stuff comes in. But so often it's reaching out, like, it's hustling. It's. It's reminding people that you're there, top of mind, like doing all of those things. And I think back to. We did some type of webinar thing a while back, and one of the things I said kind of similar to what you're saying is like, don't be afraid to do things for free. And not that you're just like, giving it away, but saying like, maybe you do a blog post and you're like, use a brand in that blog post and say, reach out to the brand and say, hey, really love your product. I used it here. Here's what it looks like. If you'd ever be interested in working together or having photos done for you would love to connect. I think it's a lot easier than coming to them and saying, like, hey, can we work together? And they're like, who are you? What are you about? Like, prove us. Prove to.

Us. I mean, if you think about it in, like, our personal lives, you know, like, maybe you want photos for your wedding or of your family. You wouldn't hire a photographer who didn't have wedding or family photos in their portfolio, most.

Likely. Right?

Right. You know, so if you are trying to go after a brand, you know, like, maybe it's flour and, you know, you're trying to pitch pancakes and you have no pancakes in your portfolio, no pancakes on your blog. It just doesn't make sense. So, like, you know, maybe you have, you know, you want to be the pancake person. You know, you would go and do all that work first so that you can see, like, clients can see that, you know, brands can see that you can really execute that. One thing that came to mind is, like, especially for creatives, I think when we don't hear back or we get no's, we take it personally because we think there's something about our work that's not good enough. But honestly, I can't tell you how many times I might have followed up with a magazine, a client, a brand, you know, and they're like, oh, we were Actually, we actually need something or, you know, we needed a photographer. Like, it. It doesn't happen all the time, but I'm surprised how often it happens when a client says, actually the photographer we had didn't work out. We were actually looking for somebody. You landed in our inbox. So, like, sometimes you're also doing them a favor, too, by, you know, just popping up, reminding them that you're there. You know, timing is everything.

So. Yeah, and it's. That is. It's work. Like, it takes effort, it takes repeated and. And a lot of times it's work that doesn't immediately pay off. But six months down the line, a year down the line, once you have those connections, people know that.

You'Re. Yeah. And I mean, I was devastated when people tell me that at the beginning. I was like, I need work now. I need these things now. And. But the thing is, like. Like you said, the work you do now will help you in six months and then the next day, you know, so it all works itself out if you continually just keep on that treadmill, I guess. Like, it just. Things just kind of consistently come your.

Way. Yep. So one of the things that we do is we occasionally ask our listeners what questions they have for an upcoming interview. And we'll pick three of these questions that people ask. There's a few more than that, but we'll pick three here, starting with this. Do you use Lightroom for editing photos and then any general recommendations kind of for the editing.

Process? Yeah, so I use capture one these days, you know, but, like, editing theory is editing theory. So, like, when you understand how to edit, you can edit, you know, you know, the same sort of way in many programs. So in terms of editing, when I started teaching editing a few years ago, I just really found that people weren't like, you've got all these tools. Which ones do you use? Or we would rely on presets. And I think if you rely on presets and you don't understand how to edit, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So I re. I came down to, like, what are the three core edits that you need to do? And so I always tell people to think about your exposure adjustments, your contrast adjustments, and your color adjustments. So if you ask yourself those three questions, like, how is the exposure for the mood or the story? I'm trying to tell you, is there enough contrast? You know, that's where a photo really pops out and has that wow feeling. And, like, food is so important when it comes to color. Like, my colors, like Feeling really rich or like other colors? I always use this example of a strawberry. You know, a gorgeous red strawberry looks really delicious, but if it's slightly orange, like that looks weird to us. So some of those presets sometimes will change those.

Colors.

So. So always come down to like, if I can just put it in a nutshell, is like exposure, color, contrast are the three things you want to look at when you're.

Editing. And that being important regardless of the program that you're.

Using. Yeah.

Exactly. Great. How about any background props that you use or recommend? Is there anything that's kind of your. Like if you're on an island and you could only take five background props with you, what would they.

Be? Oh, that's a hard one. I'd say pinch bowls are just great because you can put lots of different things in them. Salt, pepper, herbs. They really can be very adaptable to add to the scene. They're small, so, you know, they can fit in all kinds of like, you know, if you want to add a little bit of negative space here or cut it off or. It's very complimentary. So that's something I would take. I've been collecting vintage, like flatware, knives, fork, spoons. So like a nice vintage spoon is something that I would take. I probably would take a linen because again, it's just something really easy to add to a frame. And then when you think about, you know, plates, bowls, things like that, something that has some really nice, like handmade texture is just. It picks up the light really nicely. It's very complimentary to food. So something. If you could spend a little bit more money and just get a, you know, a couple of handmade pieces like that, that's probably neutral color palette would be really.

Awesome. Yeah. All right. And then you would have your island shoot. You'd be ready to.

Go.

Yeah. Was that. Was that five? I was. I don't. I wasn't keeping.

Track. I feel like that's.

Four. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. So you have one.

More. One more. I feel a cutting.

Board.

Sure. Yeah. Something that feels like it's been loved a.

Little.

Yeah. Yeah. Like not brand new out of the.

Box. Exactly. Not that, like fake bamboo kind of.

Stuff. Yeah. And then last question. How about any tips or tricks for taking good pictures with your iPhone or camera phone? Knowing that we have these really capable phones, we don't need to buy a thousand dollar camera if we're just getting started. But what would be your advice for people who want to use.

Their. This. I get this email all the Time. People are like, I want to start right away, but I only have a phone. Like, sometimes they want to ask my permission, you know, that that's okay. And.

So. Okay, yeah.

Yeah. What I say is that, you know, photography happens. You know, part of it is like the camera that you have, but there's also the part that happens outside the camera. So that's always composition, it's always lighting. So regardless of, you know, the camera, if you can get really nice lighting and composition, I think those things are really important when you have a phone because you're a little bit more limited to some of the settings that you would have. The other thing about a phone is we have the ability to just press buttons and we have a super wide angle or an enclose. So a lot of times I would recommend using some of the narrower settings that you have because if you shoot something wide and you get close to your subject, you get perspective distortion and you might see glasses or whatever kind of feel like falling out of the frame. So if you can sort of use those settings to help you get a shot that like is not going to have any of that distortion is a good.

Tip. Point being like, if you take a wide angle picture, you never want to be the person right on the side because it's like you end up looking. Looking really.

Weird.

Exactly. Yeah. So same with food, you don't want to be taking these wide angle ones because it could potentially be distorted or look a little.

Different. Yeah. And I think a lot of the times with composition, we cut things off at the side of the frame with still life photography. So, like those, those start to look a little.

Weird. Yeah, that's great. So much that we could talk about. So much that we could continue to talk about. But the great thing is that you have a YouTube channel where you cover a lot of this stuff. I know that you said you've kind of been working on building that out. You obviously have your courses and the content that you've built there as well, and occasionally working with brands as well to do food photo shoots. So can you tell us kind of all the different places you live, Rachel, and where people can follow along with.

You? Yeah. So I love, you know, come and say hi on YouTube. Check out the videos that we're sharing. A lot of teaching stuff on there. So you can find Two Love Studio on YouTube and my blog is2lovestudio.com so I'm always sharing, you know, the things that I learned in food photography, like all the little aspects. And then on Instagram, too is the other place. So 2 Love Studio for all of those. If you want to check out courses too. If you head to2lovestudio.com I have like a courses section on there. I. I tend to teach very specific. Like, I like to dive deep into certain concepts, like, so you can really understand all the ins and.

Outs. Well, that's great. Two Love. Where does the name come.

From? So it's so weird. When I was coming up with a name, like, all I was saying to myself is like, what is a word that encapsulates my two loves? And then it just kind of.

Stuck. But it didn't feel like that's what it.

Is. Yeah, it's like name Inception didn't feel quite finished. And I think six months later we added the studio on. Yeah. So that's where that came.

From. And your two loves being food and photography. Got it. Oh, that's awesome. Two Love Studio everywhere online. Rachel, thanks so much for coming.

On. Thank you for having me. Maybe we won't leave it five years next.

Time. Yeah, five years. Every three years. Two years. We'll have to shorten it a little bit. Thanks so much for coming on the.

Podcast. Thanks for having.

Me. Hey, everyone. Alexa here. And thanks for tuning into this episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. And I wanted to give you a little sneak peek into what we have going on on the Food Blogger Pro membership side of things in October. First of all, I can't believe it's October, but that is what we are talking about. So if you're unaware, the Food Blogger Pro podcast is just one part of what we do here at Food Blogger Pro. The other half is a membership. So it's a paid subscription community where you get access to different courses and trainings and events and more. It's a fantastic place to spend your time if you want to start and grow and monetize a food blog. So I would definitely suggest checking it out@foodbloggerpro.com join. But we do something new every week for our members. It's what I like to say is that, you know, our membership will look different at the end of each week because we're always adding new value to your membership. So this is what we have going on in October. So actually this Thursday we have a Q and A with Danielle Liss, she's our legal expert. And Sam Adler, the fabulous blogger behind frosting and fettuccine. And they will be talking about pricing your work and working with sponsors and clients. This is going to be such a good Q and A, so we actually wanted to offer it available to everybody so members already get access to it included in their membership price. But if you're not a member and you still want access to this conversation, you want to attend live and ask some questions for for Danielle and Sam, you can actually go to foodbloggerpro.com price and go ahead and sign up. It's just $25, so that would be a really great thing to do if you're looking to kind of maximize your earnings in Q4 and get ready for all that your business has to offer in 2024. Next up, on the 12th, we will be publishing our next coaching call, and that is going to be with Megan from Cake and Knife. And in this coaching call, Bjork answers some of her questions about doing things really well, deleting old content, and finding the connection between authenticity and engagement. It's an awesome conversation and we can't wait to share it with our members. And finally, we have a Quick Win video happening on the 19th. So a quick Win is like a course, but it's only one lesson long. And in this lesson, you'll be learning about setting up an Amazon shop. So we figured this was kind of great timing considering a lot of people try to maximize their affiliate earnings through Amazon in Q4. So we're really excited to give you some tips and tricks on how to successfully run an Amazon shop page. And that will be our October. So again, if you're interested in getting access to any of these, you can join the membership@foodbloggerpro.com join, but otherwise we'll see you right here next time next Tuesday. And until then, make it a great.

Week. Sam.