When you share your meals and workouts on the web, there’s a little extra prep and effort that comes into stylizing the shot. If I’m starving, I’m not thinking about symmetrical lines of fruit in my yogurt. Just pour it in a bowl and GO. But if I’m snapping a blog post picture, the set-up is a little more calculated. Aesthetics are everything in this business.

Bloggers are all too familiar with completely arbitrary things like food presentation for a basic breakfast bowl. Exhibit A:

Yesterday morning I woke up to a text from one of my old high school cross country teammates saying she was on her way over to drive us to a local hike for our morning cardio. By the time we hiked up and back down, stretched around the park at the bottom and drove back home, it was 10:00am and waaay past my breakfast time. This fruit-filled combo of carbs and protein was a perfect post-workout meal so I knew I had to wait a few extra minutes before diving in to get a blog-worthy snap shot ;)

A few hours later, my stomach was growling and I searched for something easy to eat while I worked on some freelance writing jobs in between meetings with real estate agents and inspectors. It turned out, the best lighting was on my bedroom nightstand. A lot of food shots end up somewhere completely random, depending on the time of day. I’d be lying if I said I never took a dinner plate picture on the bathroom counter tops.

{Whole Wheat Pita cut into 8 triangles / bartlett pear / celery / baby carrots / bell pepper / roasted pepper & pine nut hummus}

This next shot was not stylized ( I would have been a little more picky about my clementine arrangement and paper bag situation) but it was too cute to not snap a picture of. Part of blogging is sharing real life moments, and this was a picnic with a college buddy. We opted out of making our own lunch and grabbed some You-Pick-Two combos from Panera and beach towels. Nothing too fancy this time.

Restaurant pictures are another story. We’re always told to use NATURAL lighting and shoot in the daylight. Restaurants are typically dimly lit with lots of clutter. Sometimes it’s also awkward to whip out a giant Canon SLR when there are other diners close by (although nowaday’s  everyone Snapchats everything so it’s becoming a little more mainstream). Window seats have become the blogger’s best seat!

And of course any family members of bloggers eventually become trained that dinner is not ready when it’s served; it’s ready after 3 minutes of photographing with every lighting and positioning combo possible. I love cooking dinner for my parents, and after four years they are pretty accustomed to waiting for the mini photo shoot before touching their plate. Which does sometimes result in a meal gone cold. All in the name of a good picture!

I thought I would share just a few #reallife moments as a blogger, since it’s fun to see what goes on behind the lens. Speaking of which, I have a fresh batch of oatmeal pistachio breakfast bars that isn’t going to photograph itself!

:)