Food photography tips · Photography

Food photography – Dishcloths, towels and others

Gabriela Lupu

As you noticed, your dish looks better with props around it. So you can play with colors, texture and items. Besides your different kinds of crockery it’s always good to have a variety of table cloths or kitchen towels. If you don’t have so many improvise.

I will go in flea market and if I see something interesting I will buy it. It’s cheap and you will use it at some point.

I will give a list of things I use in my photos and they have also other use.

  1. Table cloths

Not all of them can be used for photography, but sometimes you find one or two that are great to have around. If they are broken and dirty use the clean part. In the first photo, in the background is a piece of an old curtain. In the second one, I have a Christmas table cloth bought special for food photography.

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  1. Kitchen towels

I have lots of kitchen towels and all are different. If you find a set with 2 or more different towels is a must for your collection.

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  1. Pieces of clothes or material

You can see in this photo a piece of a pajama. I used it only a few times and then I cut it in small pieces. One is for my food photography.

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  1. Shawls and handkerchiefs

I got a shawl for my birthday and I love the color. I use it for photography when I don’t wear it (first photo). My mother gave me lots of handkerchiefs in different colors since we have the one time use ones (second photo).

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  1. Old Romanian tablecloths

I have a collection of old big and small handmade traditional Romanian tablecloths. This is an old recipe and those old tablecloths were part of the story.

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  1. Knitted dishcloths

From leftover yarn I knitted dishcloths. I made them simple an in lots of colors. This handmade dishcloths are great with rustic or vintage photography.

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  1. Burlap

I have some pieces of burlap to use for my rustic photos.

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  1. Pants or dress

I use my dresses, skirt or pants for my photography. I am very careful to show just pieces of clothes. As you can see, you can’t tell that I am gone wear them after I take the photo. In the first photo I used an old white dress with small blue flowers and in my second one some pants.

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  1. Bedspread

Sometimes a bedspread can be very helpful. I took this photo in my bedroom, on my bed in natural light.

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So, don’t throw anything. You will be surprise how much will help sometimes when you take a photo. I have a box just for this kind of materials.

Keep taking photos!

 

 

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Published by Gabriela Lupu

Hi. My name is Gabi and I am a professional photographer, a new mom and a wife. I wanna learn to cook healthy food for my little one, so I made this blog to share my cooking experiments with everyone. It's gone be a long and a bumpy ride but a funny one, so stay tune for news and enjoy my ride.

138 thoughts on “Food photography – Dishcloths, towels and others”

  1. I love these ideas, especially since I find my biggest challenge is just feeling like my photos are boring because of the backdrop and tables being the same all the time! How do you recommend setting up a backdrop? will even just a box with a sheet over it do?

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  26. Such great tips! I am really working to improve my photography and food photography for my meal prep and recipes posts are a big part of that!

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  29. I never would’ve thought to use clothing! The pictures I’ve taken so far haven’t involved cloth, but maybe I should do that. It would be nice to see how it turns out.

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  30. What a bunch of cool ideas! Thanks a lot – now I realize I actually have a lot to work with in my house already so lots of inspiration. Love your photos too!

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  33. Great ideas! I use a lot of hard surfaces with different textures such as cutting boards, plates, pieces of wood and granite, etc. But using cloths is a much more lightweight solution. Thanks for sharing!

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  34. Oh shucks. I waited half an hour but still some of the photos would not load. Don’t know what’s up with that today, but I surely do enjoy the ones I got to see. I’ve employed several of those tricks, but never took the clothes off my back to get a shot. That’s a good one! Thanks for all the tips.

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  43. Great idea! Great placing – love the cherries pic! Thank you for sharing!! I am just learning how to handle a camera I got as a gift – its kind of intimidating (Nikon D3200) so I love any tips anyone can share! Thank you again!!!!

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  45. Thank you for all the suggestions and the inspiration. I followed your advice for the pictures I took for my latest post “Lent, Blood Oranges and Sanguinaccio” and I have gotten a lot of compliments on the photographs. I’ll keep working on them.

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  48. These photos are gorgeous! Your choices in towels, clothes and such, really bring the food to the forefront.

    I love Michel Design Works dish towels and I think they would amazing in your photos. But, then again, they may be too busy. I found them at Amazon US. I’m not sure if they’re available by you.

    Thank you for sharing such great tips. The props definitely did help.

    Reply

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