I’m excited to share that the brick wall is officially finished! The brick wall in context within the studio When I began designing the wall, I had several objectives in mind. I wanted to use it not only for photography, but also videography. Had it been solely for photography, the standard 2’ x 4’ size I’d used in past probably would’ve worked, but since I needed a backdrop for videography too, that changed things a bit. While food photography tends to take up a relatively small footprint and an 2’ x 4’ size would normally suffice, video work generally requires a larger surface. That is, unless you are keen on doing nothing but talking head videos where the camera is always zoomed in and your face takes up 60-80% of the frame. So, I knew it needed to be bigger. The question is, exactly how big? The goal with a backdrop is always to have something that is big enough, but not too big. This is because you want whatever you are shooting to be fully supported from behind by your backdrop. You...

This is a first – the first actual journal post on here. It’s a long one, too! This is a raw look into what it looks like to build out a food blog. Background For those who are unfamiliar, this isn’t my first foray into food blogging. I got my start back in the early 2010s. Throughout the years, my culinary content creation has gone through several evolutionary iterations. It’s interesting to me to reflect back on each of them and see how they’ve progressed. I’m proud of how each one has been a further honing toward an incrementally more authentic, dialed-in approach. As much as food blogging itself is a creative endeavor on a micro level – writing the individual articles, recipes, and all else – so too is the crafting of the blog concept, theme, identity, and all the larger overarching things on a macro level. While the articles and recipes have gotten better, the focus and direction and presentation of my ventures is what’s really gained momentum. Over time the quality...