This week on the podcast, M. Aimee Tan,  a professional food and beverage photographer, food stylist, creative director, recipe developer, and content creator based in Canada, reveals everything you need to know about creating sponsored posts for brands. Aimee works with local, and global clientele as well as PR & marketing agencies. In this episode, she discusses how to get started with brand partnerships for social media content, how to pitch, the eligibility to approach brands, ways...

Most photographers start a full-time or part-time business with passion and enthusiasm. But over time, when the rubber hits the road, they begin to run out of steam because they hit a roadblock -  How to grow the business and make more $$ every month? How to scale the business, a natural progression? Where to go from here, what’s next? Staying in business, any business, not just photography, is a challenge. Building a sustainable business requires us to stay on top of market demands,...

This week on the podcast, I’ve 5 quick tips to improve the lighting in your food photography. There is always so much to learn about light. Small, subtle changes can completely change the feel of a photo. It can take a photo from realistic to artistic, with never-ending options.  Flatlay photography, adding movement to photos, or a creative way to learn about lighting - this week’s tips will immediately tell you what might be missing or can be improved in your photos. It is the reminder we...

The future is looking towards food in motion.  I mean, look at social media. We’re seeing a surge in food videos.  Look at client briefs. They want their products to be captured in action. Look at our potential of being able to convey a visual story of food way more powerfully through videos. There is no denying that photos will always hold their importance but the future will have a huge demand for videos. Now, I love creating photos but videos make me sweat.  The amount of time, different...

Have you ever looked at another photographer and wondered why they’re doing better than you?  Why is their business more successful than yours?  Why have they achieved what you’ve not?  Why is your business not growing like theirs?   Will your business ever look like theirs?  Will you ever be as successful as them?  If these questions have ever crossed your mind, then let me share with you that the reason why some businesses are more successful than others is because they have a secret...

Have you noticed that a basic food photographer can have a thriving business  and  Have you also noticed that a brilliant photographer may not really be making enough in their business? This is more common than you might think.  Photography talent is very different from business acumen. They’re both completely different skill sets and just because we are good at photography doesn’t automatically imply we’ll have a profitable business. Yes, it begins with us falling in love with...

Have you ever been in a photoshoot and felt something was off, but you couldn't quite figure it out? Most of the time, it's because of one big reason – light. But instead of tackling light, our tendency is usually to start fussing with props and backdrops and composition, thinking that is the problem when actually sometimes all it needs is a tiny tweak in the light. But here's the deal – to tweak the light, we’ve got to know what to tweak. We’ve got to understand light. In this week’s...

What do you think it takes to be a successful commercial food photographer? Excellent camera skills? High level of Creativity?  Crazy passion for photography? Expensive photography equipment?  What if I told you, none of the above are deal breakers to be a commercial photographer. It takes more than camera skills, creativity and passion to run a photography business. Most of us get into food photography because we love food or have a passion for photography but running a successful and...

Is creating compositions a challenge for you?  I can totally see why.  First off, for the simple reason that composition is art. It is subjective and everyone’s style is different. So it really leaves a lot of grey area on whether a certain technique works or not. Secondly, because composition is an art, it is tough to learn it technically. Yes, we can understand guides and placement and general rules around composition but really, we all know that creating composition is like composing...

Whether it’s the start of the year or not, we all find ourselves at different points in our journey setting new goals, striving to achieve existing ones, or perhaps even questioning the necessity of setting goals altogether. Regardless of our stand on goal setting, we all have ambitions for our creative journey.  It could be launching a new project, getting better at photography, growing our business, or simply finding more balance in our lives.  Whether we set ambitious goals or avoid...

Being a full-time photographer and running a business can be very overwhelming.esp when everyone around is constantly hustling.  Someone is working with food52 Someone is shooting for Delicious magazine Someone just made $500,000 by selling their online course Someone is talking about completing 10 years in food photography We hear them, we look at their photography businesses and go, “Sigh! I’m so behind. Everyone is doing so much. I need to work more, work harder.” Running a business is...

Have you ever taken a photo and thought - “Ughh! that looks dull” “Why does my photo look flat” “That food does not look delicious” “Why doesn’t my photo pop”  “Ok, that looks good but I wish it was better”  “Gosh! I did everything right but there’s still something missing” Truth is, 90% of the time that missing factor in our photos is the light. Most of us understand the basics of lighting in food photography but we are forever striving to take it to the next level. We are constantly...

If you had to uproot yourself and move to a new country,  you had to shut down your business And when you moved to the new country with the hopes of starting a new business, You found out that you had a baby on the way. How would you feel at that point in life? Would you be excited at the prospect of building a new life and having a clean slate to start from?  Or  Would you be upset that you had to shut down your business and move to a completely unknown country and start building a life...

Look at you stepping into the new year with a smile! Well, I hope you’re smiling because it's the time of the year when fresh starts and new beginnings feel a lot easier to make.  I don’t know about your goals but a big goal for me last year and the year before was to not quit food photography. Yep!  It was my goal to do what I’m doing in spite of things not going my way. It was a tough one no matter how easy it sounds. And a big part of trying to achieve my goal of not quitting was...

Few years ago I received an enquiry from a brand for a cookbook photoshoot.  They had seen my work and wanted to know more about my process and also my rates for the project.  I shrieked. I mean who doesn’t want to shoot a cookbook. Almost every photographer dreams of it. I did too. I was excited reading that email. But there was a minor problem.  I had never done a cookbook shoot before. I had absolutely no idea what the process looked like and how I was supposed to charge for it.  I...

Ever dreamt of shooting a cookbook? How would you feel seeing your work in print? How would you feel if you opened a cookbook and found your photos on large pages staring right back at you? I don’t think I’ve ever met a photographer who didn’t want to see their work in print, who wasn’t excited by the thought of photographing a cookbook and creating memories not only special for the author of the cookbook but also for themselves.   That feeling is pretty priceless, I’ll say.  And...

I don’t know which camera to buy. Is this lens worth the cost? Should I go for flash or continuous lights? Deciding on which camera equipment to buy is never easy. It almost always comes down to our budget and whether it’s worth the investment.  Have you ever bought a piece of gear and found that it wasn’t really worth buying, didn't improve your photography or was too inconvenient to use?  We’ve all spent money on equipment we didn’t really need & we’ve all dreamt of certain...

A few weeks ago someone on social media commented on one of my posts saying that in their opinion they didn’t believe that food photography could ever be a full-time career, that it could be profitable or be taken up professionally. I didn’t say much to this because we are all welcome to have our opinions and unfortunately, this is a common opinion about our industry. But between you and me, I completely disagree. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing in the world that cannot be a...

Would you like more followers on social media? More likes? More engagement? YES? Almost everyone wishes they had a larger following on social media.  Infact, there are courses in the market on “How to get 300k followers in 30 days.” Sounds tempting, right? Who wouldn't want a larger community? Why not? But the question we really need to ask is, why? Why do we want a larger community? How does it help us or help them? Will it make us better photographers? Will it boom our...

Let’s say you have a friend who loves your photography.. ..but they don’t really understand the technicalities. One day you post a moody photo And they absolutely love it. So they ask, “how did you create it?” And you get excited and start telling them all about light and how light creates mood. But how confident are you about your understanding of light in moody photography? What if I told you that the most common mistake photographers make while creating moody photography is in the...

Have you ever bought a course, and then left it for some or the other reason without completing it?  Have you ever bought a course, completed it but it never really gave you results. Didn’t help much. Most of us have invested in courses in our creative lives and gone through the pain of certain courses not working out for us. We buy courses but don't always get the results we expect. What happens when a course doesn’t work out for us? It feels like a waste of money. It feels like a waste...

Instagram has gone through such massive changes in the last year that we food photographers & bloggers are finding it difficult to love it like before. Some creators are thriving. Some have left the platform. Some have distanced themselves. Some return only for the community and conversations.  It has impacted almost all of us esp. those who depended on Instagram for collaborations, influencer work, driving traffic to their blog or getting discovered by clients.  While we feel...

Do your photos spark an action? Do your photos leave an impact? Does your photography solve a problem? And how can photos spark an action in the first place? Is it even possible? How can you tell if they do? I can almost hear you saying, "Isn't food photography all about making mouths water?"  Truth is, creating delicious photos & making a viewer drool is just the first step. And it's not enough. The real purpose of a food photo comes into play after making the viewer drool. It is...

Which photography subject is just as interesting and powerful as food?  What is that one additional service we can add to our food photography business that can bring more income?  What would be one easy way to scale our business without any additional gear or investment?  Ok here’s a hint  - Beverage Photography! It is just as interesting as food and by including it to the list of subjects we shoot, we can actually start adding it as an additional service we offer to our clients. When...