Fixing Food Photos with Shoe Polish and Cotton Balls

I’m here in New Orleans at our Ultimate Money-Making Photo Workshop and I just picked up some cool photo tricks from Art Director, Alicia Noack.
Staff writer Bonnie Caton and I will be your workshop spies here these next three days reporting back to you with money-making photo tips we pick up from the instructors and guest speakers here with us in New Orleans.  For my report back to you today, here are a few of the many food photo tricks Alicia gave us…
First she talked about using stand-ins like mashed potatoes instead of ice cream (because they don’t melt) and glue instead of milk in cereal (so the cereal doesn’t get soggy and the pieces stay where you put them).
Then she gave us a slew of other food styling tricks to make our food photographs really stand out like using lipstick to make strawberries ripe red and brown shoe polish to color a turkey.
Granted, I wouldn’t recommend putting shoe polish on a turkey you’re going to eat nor lipstick on strawberries if they’re for dessert.  So here’s a tip you can use that won’t ruin your meal…
Microwaved Cotton Balls
Steam makes food look hot and appetizing.  So if you’ve missed that narrow natural-steam window, you can create the effect by soaking cotton balls in water and microwaving them till they’re “cooked”, then placing them behind or inside the food you’re photographing.  You can also use dry ice and smoke pellets but cotton balls can work just as well and I’m sure you’ve got some lying around the house.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s report from Bonnie.  She sat in on Tom Guarisco’s presentation on selling photos to regional magazines.
— Lori
Lori Allen
Director, Great Escape Publishing
P.S. We’re spending the majority of our time here in New Orleans learning about making money from our photos.  So I hope you don’t mind that I chose to send you a tip on taking better photographs rather than how to sell them today.  Really, the workshop was a mixture of both as it takes a good photograph to make it saleable.
Learn more about how you can turn your pictures into cash in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel.  Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Selling Photos for Cash: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.