Food photography can become very expensive. Besides the gear, props, and supporting details, all the food we have to buy to get that beautiful shot can get pricey.
In this article, I talk about how to keep food costs down and make your dollars stretch further to help keep your food photography shoots on a budget.
7 Tips for Food Photography on a Budget
Below are some of my favorite tips for food photography on a budget. With these tips, you can minimize your food costs while maximizing the number of beautiful food shots you can get!
1 – Buy In-Season Fruits & Vegetables
Whenever possible, buy your fresh fruits and vegetables in season. Fruits and vegetables that are in season are more available and plentiful, making their prices much more affordable than during their off season.
Summer and fall usually offer the widest variety of fresh, local produce, as these are the growing season for some of our favorite food photography ingredients and details such as cherries and blackberries, cucumbers and squash, and other beautiful produce.
For food shoots in the winter months, many of these same ingredients may be available but will have to be sent from other countries, making them more expensive. During those colder months plan shoots that use ingredients that are always available, or even better, pick produce that is on sale!
2 – Make Meals Your Family Will Eat
Another simple way to keep your ingredient costs for food photography on a budget is to make dishes that you or your family will actually eat. 🙂
It can be tempting to want to make a super creative culinary masterpiece just to get that great photo, but those are often the most expensive shots with the most expensive ingredients.Â
Chances are you have to buy groceries to feed your family anyway, so plan your shots around the meals and desserts that fit into your family’s needs.
3 – Plan for Family Parties, Potlucks, & BBQs
Summer barbecues, holiday parties, and family dinners are some of my favorite times of year for creating great food photography shots on a budget because I can plan to bring a dish that I know I can also shoot ahead of time.
When a family party comes around, I always make sure to volunteer to bring a dish that I know will also make a great photo. I have to make it anyway, so I may as well shoot it! Not to mention a beautifully-styled dish is always sure to wow among family and friends.
Orange Juice Pound Cake – Get the Recipe
4 – Batch Your Shots Based on Ingredients
Another great way to save money on ingredients to take beautiful food photography shots on a budget is to batch your shots. This means make multiple dishes using the same ingredients at one time.
For example, during summer in Utah, stone fruits are everywhere. Buy some (in-season local) plums at the farmers market and make a plum tart, plum-filled bars, plum lemonade, and plum jam or salsa…Not only is this a great way to get multiple shots from the same ingredients, but it’s also a great though challenge to help improve your creativity!
5 – Take Shots at Different Angles
Make sure you shoot your dish or recipe at several different angles. This helps to maximize the number of beautiful food photography shots you can get during a single shoot.
Consider this: if you batch your shots to get 4 recipes out of one ingredient (from tip #4) and also take shots at different angles to get 3-4 gorgeous images of your dish, you may end up with 15 or 16 gorgeous food photos that you can post over time–and on a budget!
6 – Grow Your Own Produce
A final tip for keeping your food photography shoots on a budget is to grow your own produce.
I have fruit trees and plant tomatoes every year, but my most-used produce of choice is herbs. Growing your own herbs is incredibly useful in food photography because they can not only be used as ingredients in your recipes but also as garnishes.
Most dishes look better with garnishes such as herbs but can also get very pricey when you’re buying them from the store every time.
There’s nothing worse than having to drop everything to run to the store because you just realized you need some chopped parsley to finish off your dish! Not to mention herbs from the grocery store die quickly–often before you get to use them all. In many cases this can mean wasted budget for many food photography dishes. Growing your own herbs means you can cut as many as you need for the dish without the risk of waste.
7 – Plan Ahead
Really, the best thing you can do to keep your food photography shoots on a budget is to plan and be organized.
Know your budget and what you’re shooting, make your grocery lists and stick to them. That will take the stress out of the shoot and your wallet!
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