So over the last few weeks I have become a bit obsessed with plates. Blame my Mom (don’t we always?). I made and posted a recipe and it was of light colored foods which she commented would look better on a darker plate. She’s not an expert…I got advice from one but I will tell you about that shortly. But my Mom is an artist, a quilter by trade and has a tremendous eye for color and design. So I took her advice quite seriously.
I spent hours over the last week looking for plates online. I found blue ones, quite pretty, and bought them from Macy’s. Unfortunately they arrived scratched. I decided to return them at the mall and made my interns’ day by taking them with me at lunch to look for replacements. I couldn’t believe it, I found 4 pale blue square dinner plates in the discount area for $3.60 each! I also found 2 kate spade emerald green polka dot plates for $3.30 each. I couldn’t believe my luck. THEN, I found this odd little clear plaque that simply has the word “YAY!” on it in gold writing. Too good to be true. I was thrilled and thought my plate obsession was quelled.
But noooooo! A few days later I got an email from a food blog I signed up for. It is called “A Pinch of Yum” and is a very special site. The owners are very successful food bloggers who have opened their books and let other food bloggers hear about how to make a very lucrative business food blogging. This is not my goal at all, this blog is more of a diary and virtual database for me to store my best recipes for my own future use. But as a marketer who loves food and cooking I am very interested in how they built their business. So where was I? Oh, the email from Pinch of Yum with the Instagram Tip Sheet. It was all about how to plate your food and tips on how to photograph dishes for the best results.
Now guess what she said about the plates you should use to photograph your dishes on? WHITE. Your basic, boring white plate. Their exact words: “Use white dishes for a pure white reference, and to make the food really pop.” So I jumped online again with a renewed obsession. “I need white plates!” I found these Pfaltzgraff plates with a raised design on the border and fell in love. I haven’t photographed any meals on them yet, but I really can’t wait. So here are pics of all of the plates in the gallery above plus my old garden designed stoneware that my MIL gave me years ago and my husband Dean loves as they remind him of Mom.
Please leave a comment below on what you think of the different plates and what recipes and foods you think would look best on each/any of them!
