How many times have you seen gorgeous photos on Instagram of yummy goodies and just been like… how do they do that? Because I do not have a selection of beautiful colour co-ordinated mugs. My mugs cupboard is a mismatched assortment of random colours, motifs and whatever followed Player 2 and I from where we last came.
Turns out, for a lot of the accessories you see in these pictures are props. You can even get fake ice cubes! I found this out after my friend Cat started her FOOD Photography Prop Shop. We’ll get to that in a bit. Let me introduce Cat first.
Cat Carstens is the blogger behind “lefamishedcat” and shares incredible recipes, yummy treats and content that covers cooking and baking but with Cat’s own twist – including meat free dishes, gluten free options and a bunch of other stuff you can do at home. I love her content. It’s real, it’s simple to follow and she has inspired me to believe that maybe one day I too can cook stuff that looks like that. Cat was struggling to find the various props for her delicious creations. As she went about sourcing what she needed she realised there was a space for an online site to help other content creators… and so the FOOD Photography Prop Shop was born:
The store has everything from fake ice blocks to vintage perfume bottles and spoons. While she has a host of items that are ideal if you want to take photos of food, many of the products are also ideal if you just want pretty stuff in your kitchen. Things like the cookie cooling racks and handmade ceramics are so much more than props – they’re actually beautiful items you can spoil yourself with or gift to someone else.
The shop also sells “previously loved props” so for foodie content creators who are just getting started there is a much more affordable option available. I don’t think the prop shop is only for foodie content creators. I’ve seen Cat’s props used for beautiful lifestyle pictures as well.
