For years, I’ve thought I needed a light box to photograph food or packed lunch ideas for Lunch It Punch It. Lack of one meant I just took whatever I could get. The photos are uninspiring and not on par with most what I see on most blogs.

I have seen the light! And it is daylight, streaming through my windows.

The above photo was taken with my iPhone using the Camera+ app and shared to Instagram.

My setup was inspired by Angie of I Shoot Like a Pro who said two white, two black foam core boards and a window with daylight are what you need for your photos, not a fancy camera. Don’t believe me, check out her post It’s Not About the Camera.

Let me try.

No foam core boards, but I had a piece of poster board, a piece of painters tape to hold it up, a window with daylight and things to photograph.

Note: the above unedited photo was taken at night after I saw a request on Instagram to share how I setup the photo, hence the ugly colors. I’ve always had that butcher block near that window, I pulled back the sheers because the light was already blah from rain and snow. It is near my kitchen so this should work for moving lunches from the kitchen to the butcher block for a better photo.

This was the first photo I took with my iPhone using the Camera+ app because I was channeling warm weather.

The next step will be editing the photos beyond dropping a watermark. Maybe I’ll even get back to batch processing which I used to do during my business days.

Baby steps.