The Ultimate Blog Podcast - Snap, Style, Sell: Food Photography Tips for Bloggers with Melodee Fiske from Pretty Focused

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

When it comes to the crowded world of food blogging, your photos can make or break your success. On this episode of The Ultimate Blog Podcast, Amy and Jennifer chat with Melodee Fiske, founder of Pretty Focused and host of the Pretty Focused Podcast, about how food bloggers can take photos that not only look amazing but actually help their blogs grow. Whether you’re brand-new to photography or you’ve been snapping pics for years, Melodee’s food photography tips will inspire you to grab your camera and get cooking.🔗Check out the show notes for this episode!📸 Grab our 8 Step Guide for Image Optimization💼 Hire a food photographer in the Pretty Focused Buyers Club💻 Join the Food Photography for Bloggers Facebook Group🍎 Join the Pretty Focused Food Photography for Bloggers Course- use code SPARK10 to save 10%Do you love this podcast? Say thanks by leaving a positive review and/or rating!  

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reineke and I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips. We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice. Our mission is to educate, support, inspire, and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to The Ultimate Blog Podcast. So today we are talking about a hot topic in regards to blogging that Jennifer and I just realized we really haven't talked a lot about here on the podcast.

And I'm not honestly sure why. Maybe it just took Melody pitching us in our email and say, hey, I need to come on your show and talk about this. And that is photography. And it's a really, really. important thing for your blog is the images. And Melody is here today to chat about food photography in particular. And she is the founder of Pretty Focused and also the host of the Pretty Focused podcast. So Melody, welcome to our podcast. Glad to have you. I am so glad to be

here. Like we're just, you know, chatting before we hit record. And I'm just so excited to talk to you guys both about this and um and just dive into photography because i know that it can be a pain point for a lot of people um and so i'm i hope that we can really address some of those pain points with them today and they can walk away from this episode being like okay i can do this right i can do this yes this is your just consider this your photography pep talk that's where we're going to go today so this is going to be awesome i think it's going to be really encouraging because a lot of times what people feel overwhelmed by is what they don't understand. And so I'm assuming that at one point in time, you had a camera in your hands for the first

time, and you might have felt that way too. So where did you get started with this journey going from, you know, learning photography to now teaching people how to take better photos? Yeah. So, and especially in the food blogging world, which I think is just wild, you know, whenever you, I look back 10 years ago, you know, when I wanted to start a food photography business and I did, or not a food photography business, just a photography business doing portraits and stuff. I was a stay-at-home mom. I had two, my boys were really young. And I just a way to make money working at home. And so photography, I just, I loved it. I love being creative. I did start a food blog way back in the day because I had a friend who was a food

blogger and I just, like, fan-gurled every time I saw her. Because I remember when she had 100,000, like, page views. And I was like, no way. And like, it was just so cool. But, you know, back in 2013, you know, 2014, that was, I feel like that was so big. But I only took photos during the holidays. And I was really frustrated. Like, I wanted to make it a year-round business. Like, I could, I could do well during the holidays. And that paid for our Christmas presents. But it was like, it would have been nice to make money all year long, right? And so, I just, I got, I got really frustrated. Do you know that feeling where you're just like, I know I can do this? I know, but I don't know how. And I am sure that you have that same story with food blogging.

And I am sure a lot of the people that you guys serve have that feeling too. Like, I know I can do this. I'm just frustrated. I don't know how. And so I invested in education. And then that same friend who as a food blogger had these recipes that she needed to photograph. So as I am just trying to photograph anything and everything, I would have photographed a dog's birthday party if you would have asked me, you know? And so she had these list of recipes and the first one on there was a veggie burger. And so I offered to photograph them for her. And her name is Holly for my plant-based family and I photographed these recipes for her and I delivered the images to her and as I'm going like it just filled my bucket because I loved cooking. I love photography. I love being

creative and that veggie burger just filled me with so much joy and I told her I was like man I wish I could do this for a living like that was so fun and she was like oh but you can. I'm like What? And so she just introduced me to all of these groups where bloggers connect. I connected with bloggers right away. And so one blogger I connected with long term and she and I together actually launched pretty focused together. And so, you know, since then she stepped away and it's just focusing 100% on her blog. But, you know, together we created pretty focused. And it was a way to really teach stay-at-home moms, like me, ways to just make extra money working from home. I remember my first paid project outside of the veggie burger was like a bean dip.

And I have to say I've come a long way from those photos. Because you come like, oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. But it just that was like our heart and desire was just a way to help. And then as we've gone on, bloggers are like, But the photographer, I want to take better photos for my blog. And so now we are teaching food bloggers as well, especially those who are new and intermediate and maybe feeling a little overwhelmed by photography and they don't know where to start, you know, pretty focused really is tailored for food bloggers.

So a lot of places you're going to go and you're going to kind of piecemeal different things and take a little bit of this and a little bit of that from each person. Well, I can take that. And that's great. There's a lot of great educators out there. But, you know, it might be more for editorial or it might be more for restaurants and magazines and commercials. And that's great. Like this really focuses on the blogger and the needs whenever it comes to, you know, SEO and making sure you have a variety of images because you're not just photographing for your blog. You're photographing for social media. You're photographing for Google. And so I what we tell. our photographers is that for bloggers, the value is in the variety. You know, just having three to five heroes might be great for your blog post, but whenever you're looking at making four pins for Pinterest, per blog post, that's really hard to do with just those three to five. So, you know, just being able to have that ingredient shot, the process photos, and then the heroes you're really able to do and really promote that post because the whole goal is to drive

traffic to the blog post yes right you're like tickling people you know like i don't that's sounded really awkward you're not you're not tickling them you're teasing them okay you're teasing don't tickle people they will think you're weird uh yeah no you're teasing people on social media but really the big reason why you're on social media is to get people over to the blog and so anyway that was that's kind of how i got from there to hear yeah isn't it crazy like i started my first blog in 2013 and quickly realized that food photography was an important piece but it was hard to piecemeal together you know different sources to try to figure out what in the world i was doing i think i bought like a book and

then I, you know, a lot of it just comes with practice. And I remember being so proud of some of those images that I go back and look at now. And I'm like, okay, well, this is just part of the journey. Yes, everybody starts somewhere. Everybody starts somewhere. And I think that's important that you just, that everybody understands and feels that whatever you create now is, is good. But it is important, right? In food photography, especially to have good images. Can you just talk a little bit about like why that's important for food bloggers to have good images. I know, you know, we want to not tickle, but tease people on social media, but talk a little bit about those components. Talk a little bit about those components of what makes a good photo and why

if you don't have them, you might not be able to compete as well in a busy space, which is food blogging. Yeah, it is a very busy space. There are a lot of food blogs out there. And so first, obviously, I think, and this is what we train our photographers, is that you have to understand, again, who your audience is, right? And so there are people who are wanting to make food at home for their families. And so the photos need to be approachable. And so oftentimes, you know, if things are overstiled, you're going to overwhelm people. And this is, you know, I get this question, well, how can I style and, and I need inspiration and I'm burnt out and I'm like, hey, listen, you know, we're food focused. We're not seen

focused. We're really focused on the food. Okay. And so that's tighter images. It's making sure you're using your macro filter. Yes, of course, you want to have items on your board that makes sense for the recipe. Like, you know, maybe don't use a silver platter for barbecue. I mean, that just feels weird to me. That might be somebody's vibe, but for me, it just, it doesn't, it doesn't work, right? And so making sure that you're using the appropriate plates. Of course, that's very important. But really, you're focused on the food because the reader came to your blog to make the chocolate cake, right? And so they want to know about the chocolate cake. And so we use the term food focused and pretty focused.

No pun it is intended. Well, maybe there's a pun intended in that. But, you know, because I think that is so important and that can, when you start to get analysis paralysis when you think about how am I going to propose and how am I going to style and when you just remember that it's, it's got to be focused on the food, I think that kind of alleviates a lot of that because when you think about it, when you do make those pins on Pinterest, what gets cropped out? Do you know what I mean?

You are cropping those images. When you are on the blog, you know, I know a blogger who puts square images on her blog now. And so it's guess what's getting cropped out? All of the styling. Guess what's staying in the photo, the food. Yeah. And so I think you can get really overwhelmed with all of these elements that belong in the photo when really it's just, let's just make sure you're taking photos of the food. It's got to obviously be well executed, which you know to do.

You're the food blogger. This is your expertise, right? And then it needs to have that, the yummy factor is what we call it, is that, you know, you've got to, every recipe has this yummy factor. And so you've got to know what that is for every recipe and make sure that that photo is included in every single recipe. And so the journey that we take people on is to make sure you're getting everything that you need, including that yummy image, is like from oven to served.

And so, you know, what it looks like straight out of the oven, it's scooped out. You got the scoop action shot, right? We try to do an action shot kind of like, you know, each part of the way, all the way to what it looks like served. Because again, you're making this for your family or you're making this for guests. And so kind of going along that journey really helps to make sure you're getting the variety and then that you're staying like focused instead of being like, what am I getting next? It's like, well, just follow that logical journey that you take with your family every time you eat that meal.

Yeah. That makes sense when somebody's probably asking themselves as a new food blogger or somebody who is maybe just considering starting a food blog. I'm not really sure, like, what kinds of photos to take. I think that's a really good tip to just follow the journey that you're on as you're in the kitchen from, you know, the creation to the plate. That's helpful advice, I think. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, you're, you are educating readers. You know, back in 2020, I think we called it writing for expert advice. And so then it was like you want to make sure your photos are illustrating the expert advice, right? And so as you are taking them on this journey of how to make this, ensuring that your photos have that, have that journey and are really educating them. and illustrating what it is that you're telling them in the blog post. Yeah.

So when somebody's first getting started and they want to start their food photography journey and start their blog and they're feeling overwhelmed by all the things, what things do they need in order to start taking photos that would be good enough to put on their blog? Okay. So. Is it a loaded question? No, it's not. I am ready for it.

There's a lot of things that we could talk about, right? But the most important thing for you to do, and this is for people, I understand that when you're new, there might be some people working with their phones, and that's what you have. You're using the tools that you have. We teach people how to use professional cameras, but I understand if you're starting out as a blog, you might just have your phone or you may have been able to invest in a camera. You're going to get a higher quality image. yes i know they take great photos but anyway so you might be starting out so you can you can do this

and apply this tip whether you are using your professional camera or your phone and that is making sure your lighting is dialed in and so this is foundational to photography this was a journey for me as i am figuring out i mean i photographed in so many different places of my house a photographed outside. I photographed and we are in Arizona. So we kind of have like an orangey, beigey stucco going on, you know, so had to work within those color casts. And I still do even where I'm working now. But, you know, I found like I've photographed by a west facing window, south facing. I mean, I photographed everywhere in our house. And what I have found the best light to be is a really big south facing window. North facing is a little bit more challenging,

being in the northern hemisphere, even during winter months whenever the sun is a little bit higher in the sky for Arizona. It could be different depending on where you are. So just really pay attention. But a really big window is so important. And if you're using artificial light, a really big soft box to emulate that really big window light is really key. And making sure that I'm looking over my setup right now as I'm sharing this and then my honestly my favorite light to photograph in is direct light that's diffused and that just creates some of the most beautiful light but you can't be scared of it you know too I encourage people to play but sometimes they're like we'll play well what do you mean so if you think about the direction of light there's five different

directions it can come from but in in food blog photography we use side light this is the most common it is the easiest there's back light i typically save backlight for my heroes and then there's cornerback light this is great for heroes and it's great for drinks as well but just really those three main directions of light is really really helpful uh you don't want to use light coming from the front and you absolutely if you're using natural light want to make sure that you have all other lights turned off and you really can't use this is why you might I can't use my kitchen my kitchen is so dark my countertops are way too busy and so having a table a portable table that you can move into the light and having those styling boards like you remember Jennifer we did

not have Amy when did you start blogging 2017 okay so we did not have styling boards in 2013, 2014, even 2017. No. We did not have those. No. You people, you people coming into this and you have all these styling board options, you have no idea how lucky you are. Oh, yeah.

Jennifer, didn't you make yours? I feel like Jennifer made, she, like, got wood from the, like, from Lowe's. We went to my parents' house because my dad had all the tools. Oh, yeah. We built them and painted and stained them. Stained and all the things. Yeah. So these styling boards are wonderful because you can create any scene that you want. You can take it anywhere you need to in your house, right, to really get that light.

And so, man, so having those things, I'm just like reminiscing of the wood styling boards. And then it was like, I really want a marble styling board. And you know what? We had to buy marble. I have from, I think, Sir LaTob, like an actual. marble slab like carrying this thing around so glad so glad we don't have to do that anymore but there's also one tool that I use that has helped not just so you've got the lighting lighting is important but really this is going to work with when you have a you know a DSLR mirrorless camera is to use an expo disc and this sets a custom white balance on your images.

This was a game changer for me because I don't know about you and pulling your hair out whenever you're editing all of these photos. You're like wondering why they're blue or how did it get so yellow. Most of the time I feel like they tend to pull blue more than yellow if your camera is set to auto white balance, especially on the older cameras. I saw this on my like on my 60D. I saw it on my Canon Mark 3, and thank goodness, the cameras nowadays do have a better auto white balance. But the thing with the auto white balance is that it could still change per photo that you take.

Yeah. And so that ExpoDisc sets that custom white balance for that whole section. So it does not change for any of those photos until you change the white balance or until the lighting changes, right? So it can be a little bit more challenging to keep up with. You have to think that I need to reset it. But whenever it comes to editing, like, it shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes to edit a session. Yeah. And so if you're hearing that and you're like, well, it just took me an hour.

That's probably because your photos are not right in camera. And that's really the goal. And the only way you can do that is making sure that you're using the right lighting and really making sure that you are using like an expo disc. even if you can use Kelvin, it is helpful. But Kelvin only accounts for like the blues and the yellows, whereas like the Expo Disc also accounts for the greens and the pinks and the blues in the yellows. And so you get like a better balanced photo. And so those are really suggestions and recommendations that I would make sure that you're starting with is make sure that your lighting

is you got a big window that you're working with, a table that's two by three, styling boards that are two by three. Please don't use two by three. Please don't use two by two. You will not have enough room. Yeah. You cannot do casseroles and crock pots and all of that on a two by two board. You've got to have the two by three. And then using that that tool, like the Expo Disc to set that custom white balance. I know people use gray cards and whatever you can do that. I use an Expo Disc and I love it. So it's what I've always used. Do you know that uploading huge image files to your blog without optimizing them can slow down your site, take up unnecessary storage, and potentially even hurt your SEO. Many bloggers don't realize this. They don't

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Just head to Ultimate Blogroadmap.com and use the code Mary. And let's take the next step together. Hurry, though, the sale ends Sunday night, July 27th at midnight. So a few simple tools. And like you said, if you're starting with your phone and start with your phone, at least get your practice, practice with that lighting, practice with your setup. up. And then the next part I kind of would like to talk about is the process. So I know the one thing that I would struggle with is I might bite off a little more than I can choose, so to speak,

whenever I would start photographing recipes. And I'd be like, I can probably get like six recipes done today. And yeah, don't ever do that. So, you know, then I would end up stressed. I would have piles of dishes and I would be in tears. So can we talk about how having a process, could be important too and like how does that play into getting good photos yeah well first make sure that you are not photographing six in one day and if you do you need a team yeah you can't do that on your own i mean even if it's like the neighborhood teenager who's you're hiring to help you with dishes yeah or the babysitter they want to make money you know so so get get the get the help that you need, I hire my own kids and they help and they know how to help, right?

They've grown up doing this so they know what to do. And so, but it all starts with planning, right? And so making sure you have all of the ingredients, making sure you have read and re-read the recipe, even though it is your recipe, right? I cannot tell you how many times I have gone to do ingredient shots and I've had to do I get into the process and I realize I missed three ingredients and I have to go back like the like I'm new to this you know like and so like melody but guess what I didn't I didn't plan I just planned in my head I'm like I got this it's just chocolate cake no it's not just chocolate cake and so making sure that you are checking off all of those ingredients you have all of the bowls. And so I will go into my kitchen, measure out all of those ingredients and get them

in bowls and then bring them into my studio and set them out on the table. You know, I've got all of my things ahead of time. I know what images that I'm going to get. For me at this point, it's just I'm on autopilot, right? Because I've done it so many times. But also, I think making sure that you have that checklist of heroes that you need to have. And so start again, that oven to serve. If you can follow that progression, you can really make sure that you're getting the images that you need. It comes with practice too, I think. Just, you know, you're going to mess up sometimes and you have to forgive yourself. And if it's for your own blog post, you can decide, is it good enough? Can I go ahead and call this good enough? I might have missed a step or something

like that, is that going to be okay? Or do I need to take a moment and reshoot this and learn something, you know, learn something else? And so I hope that nobody feels completely overwhelmed because I think it's a learning process for all of us. And you just the more times you do it, I don't want to say easier, but the more natural it starts to become. Yeah, absolutely. You know, process shots, I think ingredient shots came around 2020, 21. and I feel like the process shots really were the way that they're done now is really within that time frame too whereas before it was just kind of like I might get a process here or there I get a couple heroes just kind of wing it you know but really with with SEO and making sure that you have great reader experience or user experience you've got those ingredient shots make sure you're labeling those photos with the ingredients give yourself plenty of space for that for the process photos you know before we would do styled and I would always style them like with the ingredients that came next in the photo but now really the trend is just that single bowl

in the photo we call it the action bowl and you're photographing from overhead you know and so some people like to put it on the bottom third and then they'll put like words on top other people like it centered in the photo and then you know they might crop it square because those are all those images are being collaged right in your blog post and so just remember that you know you're not photographing like everything that goes into it you're just photographing that step of the recipe and sometimes some recipes i've read in a single step there's four steps yeah how do you do that yeah you know like well how and so i just like hit the the points that are like i think most important and really what that batter is going to look like you know if it's an angel food cake you are

you know you might show what that looks like after you've pulsed that sugar for the first time to get it nice and fine you know just to show people what that that texture is supposed to look like did you did they actually pulse it long enough you know and so then you've got of course you're going to show the whipped meringue right those egg whites you want to show this that soft peak so i'm going to get that overhead but i also might do a secondary shot from the side that shows exactly what that soft peak looks like and what they need to go for so those are things like there's there's like the primary process shots and then there are those those secondary that help give the readers just a little bit more information like the soft peak yeah which makes

a pretty photo too just to be able to look at yeah have fun I don't know I think that that's the encouragement too is like as you're learning photography like remind yourself that this is a creative journey for you too and because it can feel very stressful to to kind of learn but you are learning how to be creative in a new way and maybe maybe you've never done photography at all and this is a whole new thing. Like you get to learn a whole new thing that you've never done before. So giving yourself a lot of grace

in that part of the journey, I think, is really important because one thing I love about what you do, Melody, is yes, you can teach people how to create shots for their own blog, take photos for their own food blogs, but you're also teaching people how they could use this in a different way as well by creating an additional stream of revenue. So do you want to talk a little bit about that piece of it too?

so like your main like bread and butter is like really teaching people how to take good food photos. But then there's a broader thing there. There's a broader opportunity there for so many and that's to to have that other piece and build more revenue with this new skill that you're developing. And like you said, you know, you started out, you're a stay at home mom. You wanted to know how to make extra revenue. That's how I started out. Jennifer was working. Her journey sounds different. So there's all different kinds of people who come into blogging and their, their ideas are different. But I think for the majority of us, especially those who are listening, we all do want to make money doing this. And that's the goal. So how else do you equip people

within pretty focus to be able to generate revenue after they have learned how to take good photos? Yeah. So we have a whole program where we train people how to take photos, like you said. And then when they graduate, we connect them with food bloggers. And we've actually had a lot of food bloggers go through this program as they're growing their own blog. And they're learning how to take photos for their own blog. But they're also, once they graduate, can start working for other food bloggers. And they are able to start generating some revenue a little bit earlier. They're working on those skill sets.

So it's really like a big picture, like long-term goal plan that helps them start making money sooner as they're building their blog. And plus, like, when you're just in community with other people, I think that you're, you're driven to meet your goals just a little bit more. And you guys know this full well, right? When you're in community with the right people, you're going to be able to meet your goals. And so that's what we've been able to see bloggers do is they'll go through pretty focused, work with other bloggers, and then they'll drop off clients and then just focus solely on their, on their blog.

And then the great part is now they come back and they hire photography. photographers from that same group. So it's like this wonderful life cycle and community of where we're just helping each other grow our own businesses and to be able to live that life that we want to live working from home, having that freedom. And I just think it's so cool that there's just this cycle that helps, you know, that just kind of keeps going on and feeding into each other. so whoever knew that something so specific such as food photography for blogs could involve so many people and I think it's such an amazing and wonderful thing it is it's like this whole life cycle that you described and and we talked about it before we recorded today like I

started learning photography and then I've eventually hired photographers and so you can kind of be at any point in the process and if you're starting a food blog today you have options as well if you want to learn how to do photography and you want to make money doing photography those are options if you don't want anything to do with it but you love making recipes and you can invest in your business you can hire somebody right out of the gate that's an option too so it just i want people to feel encouraged and maybe you can talk about this i think one thing that food bloggers might struggle with a little bit when hiring somebody is they feel like they should do it themselves and so can you talk about that a little bit oh can't

Can I? Because I feel that same way too. I really struggled as a business owner letting things go and realizing, I mean, it was a big pride thing, to be honest, that I felt like I had to be the expert in everything. And this was, I felt like I was like letting people down. It made me feel like I wasn't good enough or what the heck am I doing here. You know, if I have to ask people for help. What are they going to think of me? And so, I mean, just speaking transparentlyly, it was very hard. There was like a season, a couple of years where I really struggled with asking people for help because I felt like I needed to do it all on my own. But once I realized that, you know, Steve Jobs doesn't make iPhones, right? He didn't, he didn't, he wasn't in the factory making

the phones, right? He was leading the company and said, he was. He was leading the company and a vision when I realized what my job is as a business owner, not as somebody who's just created a job for myself, right? There is a, I, I, I want to be a business owner. I want to, I want to have that owner mindset, that operator mindset, right? Not a, like the doer and getting into the weeds and everything. And so when I realize that, I mean, then it just is like, oh, I'm actually, I'm the vision setter. I kind of gave myself a different job, you know, title, a job description. Like, this is my job and it is okay for me to hire out those other people.

In fact, to be a good leader and a good business owner, you have to do that. At some point, you do have to let things go if you want to continue to grow. And, you know, speaking frankly, you might be paying people. more than paying yourself, right? And that is a challenge. I think at some point, business owners go through. But understanding the, that the bigger goal and the bigger picture that you have in mind, of course, obviously, if that's something that you're like, well, I can't afford to not pay myself right now, completely understand. Okay. So, so you know what your situation is, right? You know where you're at and I'm I'm you know trusting you to discern you know your story from somebody else's

and what I'm saying but there comes a point where you have to spend money to continue to make money and investing in other people and relinquishing some of those tasks like social media the photography and this could be hard for people because not just because you feel like you have to do everything you're on your own but because we're controllers and this is our vision This is the visual representation of your brand. Yes. Yeah. So it's not just hiring and spending the money.

It's about letting go of that. And so I would say, like within pretty focused, we have over 220 grads with over 220 styles, right? They all have that same core food blog photography, food focused, but each, each one kind of brings their own style to it and so I would say like you know you can you can head to our website and look at everybody's portfolio our portfolios or under hire a grad on our main website and you can go through and find a style that matches yours you can you can do trial recipes with them right you can you're like it's your business you can you can ask them if you want to do this see if it's going to be a good fit for you and for them

because if it's not a good fit for you, chances are it's not going to be a good fit for them and you want to have that fit. And then also, you know, if you do find somebody that you like and maybe they didn't do a session that you loved, give them that feedback, especially in pretty focused. Our photographers go, we give them feedback. That's how they get to graduate is we give them they're required to do like a minimum number of of shoots before they graduate and we give them feedback on every single recipe our coaches are in there telling them you know what they did great they're giving them a take action they're giving them an area of focus they're used to it so they actually love it whenever people give them that feedback I'm like hey I love that you

did this, you know, next time do you think that you could do this or, hey, these photos really miss the mark? Can you reshoot them? And so they're, most of them are going to be more than willing to accommodate your needs because they, they know that they're working in a service-based industry, right? And so, and that's one thing that we push and encourage is that this is a service-based industry. We're here to serve people. And so I think, I hope that that alleviates some of that concern too is that we have a lot of styles and we have a lot of everybody runs their own business so there's kind of a standard but some things might be a little bit different per person and so that is up to them to decide they're just a graduate of their program like they don't you don't hire them

through us you hire them through their own business so just that open feedback I think really really helps because it is your vision yeah and so you should advocate for your vision yeah too yeah yeah Jennifer and I have both used people from Pretty Focused and had really great experiences. So I just want to make sure that we do give a little air time for that. I was on the opposite end. So photography is something that's always felt really overwhelming to me. So having that component of Pretty Focused has been really helpful for me as a blogger, who is a stay-at-home mom, who is my husband has a demanding job.

And so I do have, you know, the majority of the caregiving, like I'm the one taking to and from school. And that's what I want. Like, I think that that's the thing to remember, too. Like, I want to be the one who's taking to and from school, volunteering in classrooms and doing all that. But I also want to have some creative business and things like that. So there's got to be things that I give up. And photography was something that I was like, I don't want to spend the time to learn.

And so having that group to go to and be able to look at the grads and, okay, who could I connect with and who could I potentially hide. because I'm not a full-time food blogger. I have food recipes on my website. It's not something like I'm pumping out three recipes a week, you know. And so that's for somebody who might have like a health and wellness blog like me, like I'm talking about health things, but I want to have some supporting recipes that could, you know, get people, you know, just more information there.

Sure. Then hiring that out might actually be more cost effective for you versus having to learn this entirely new skill, unless you're wanting to, like, do it. So I think what I, what I hope that the listeners hearing today is there is no one right way to do photography, to do food photography or anything, whether you learn how to do it yourself, whether you hire somebody to do it for you, whether you have the recipe idea, and then you, you hire a food photographer who helps bring that to light. There's no wrong way. And, and, and, and, and, and, the end of the day, in order to have a blogging business today and have it be successful,

you are likely going to need help at some point. And knowing that that is not a failure on your part, if anything, I think it's what's going to set you apart and allow you to scale in the way that you want to scale is by getting really real with yourself and asking yourself, like, what is the purpose of this business? Why am I doing it? and where, where am I really good and where, where do I keep leaning into and where do I maybe take this off my plate and hire some help in one way or another in order to still maybe do those things. But to be able to move forward and grow and scale, I just think that's the nature

of, you know, food blogging today and blogging in general is asking yourself, what are the things that I need to be doing and what are the things that can maybe let go of or hire someone to do to do for me. So I really appreciate just your own transparency with that as a business owner, we have definitely felt that as well, you know, independently and with Spark, like you cannot burn the candle at both ends all the time. And so you have to sometimes ask for help all the time. We should be asking for help. Yeah. Right. Right. I think it sets, it sets the leaders apart, right? Every business owner, you stepped into that role. You're a leader. What kind of leader are you going to be? Yeah. You know. So you, you are whether you like it or not.

yep uh-huh comes with the territory yes it does well melody thank you so much for just the tips that you've shared about photography and everything i think it's been a really empowering episode and i'm sure that we are going to have people who want to connect with you further can you please let them know how they can do that yeah well you can follow us on instagram you can we have a wait list for our blogger edition so you can head to our website prettyfocus com but we actually also i forgot to tell you guys this just started a free facebook group for food bloggers who are wanting to learn photography where you can go get those tips kind of stay

in the know and so we can provide that link for you as well if that's something that you're willing to if you're wanting to join as well yeah we will put all of that in the show notes and thank you so much melody for what you're doing just to help food bloggers in general it is truly truly a gift that empower so many who are are at home and wanting to grow these businesses. So thanks for what you do for this industry, too. Well, thank you so much for having me. Thanks. Thanks for listening to The Ultimate Blog Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about building your blog, visit Theultimateblogpodpodcast.com backslash newsletter to get signed up for our email newsletter. If you enjoyed this episode,

we'd love for you to share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for tuning in today and we'll see you next time.