Why my food photography looks like... a family dinner.

My chicken makhani, on our normal plates, complete with Subway napkins
and sweaty plastic cup.

There are a ton of food blogs out there with beautiful, mouthwatering pictures of meals, plated perfectly, glistening under really good lighting, on a sparkling surface.

My food pictures tend to look more like what would be served up at someone's house. The plates are serviceable (let us say "durable"), the napkins are mismatched, water has spilled on the table (and sometimes some of the food has too).

The reason for that? I don't cook food to take pictures of it. I cook food for my family to eat. If we get a couple of pictures of it along the way, then great. The fact is, with a family of seven, we rarely have time to worry about how well it is plated, and getting the lighting and angle just right.

And this is all ok. Really, really ok. Because I think that people should see what the food will look like when you really make it. This isn't primped and primed or anything except thrown on a plate. Because 99% of the time, that's how you're going to eat it. So my pictures aren't all beautiful. Heck, I'm happy when they come out in focus. But they are real, and you can know that that's what it really looks like.