I get asked a lot of photography questions, and thought I would try to go over some photography tips on Fridays. Soooo, if there’s something you want to know more about, leave a comment with you idea or question.  I want to cover everything from styling, camera settings to photo editing.

So let’s start.

I have worked as a professional photographer since 1998 or so when I first opened my own portrait photography business. I obviously do photography for my blog, but also have had several photographs published in many magazines, I also do photography work for local businesses, and some of my work has been featured on Houzz.com.

Having said that I will tell you that I am completely self-taught.

Okay here goes…

1. Group things together.

Let’s begin at the beginning. let’s say you have something you want to photograph. Let’s talk about styling today. The dishes below are grouped together but the photo is boring, it needs something else.

Let’s talk about styling photos. So first if they are going on a table, I put a piece of fabric under them or a tray to help them feel like a grouping.

Then sometimes I organize it all together stacked. Here I added some flowers from my garden for a fresh look and used a vintage tablecloth.  I like the varying heights of the dishes and silverware.

2. Add Fresh Flowers 

For the photo below I used simple twine around jam jars that I used as vases to hold flowers from the fields. I love the idea of everyone having their own vase..

I try to add fresh flowers when possible even if they aren’t in a vase.

3. Bring it outside

I like to set the dishes on unusual things like this ironing board. Here I set up on the back porch where the lighting is better.

4. Use simple ingredients. 

Below I used an old vintage enamelware pan to hold flowers.

Or you can dress thing up with silver candlesticks and crystal.  Again I used fresh flowers, this time pink roses. I also used a very fluffy, cloud like tablecloth (shhhhh…. it’s actually my ruffled shower curtain. )

5. Add food to your photos. 

You can even add food to your table to give it even more color and pop. And then you get to eat it when you are finished, which is a real plus to me.

Notice I use simple ingredients but quality ingredients like vintage dishes and cloth napkins.

The idea to to group everything together with varying heights, and textures. Color is great but not to many colors I think. Another tip is to set things up then take a photo and look at the photo before you proceed. You often can critique your styling better when you are looking at the image on the back of the camera or on the computer than when you are looking directly at the objects. I am not sure why that is so, but it is.

Hopefully that gave you a few ideas.

Get my ebook, 8 Ways to Add Farmhouse French Style and 3 more bonus PDFs, and my emails... it's all FREE!

CEDAR HILL FARMHOUSE - updated country French style

Your information will never be shared or sold to a 3rd party.