As soon as I bought my first fancy lens, I thought for sure I was ready for FoodGawker.  I hand selected, what I thought, were my finest photos and clicked submit.  Seven rejections later, I gave up.

Fast forward to today, a year later, I randomly decided to face more rejection give it another shot.  I submitted a Wild Harvest quiche photo on Sunday morning and didn’t give it a second thought.  When I woke up on Monday morning, groggy from a full baking weekend, I checked my phone and sorted through emails.  The usual.  Spam, spam, boss, spam, FoodGawker?!  Wait, what?

Upon reading accepted and clicking over to my FoodGawker profile, I felt accomplished.  Perhaps more accomplished than my blogging self has ever felt.  I looked through my old rejections, nodding in agreement with their feedback.  Lighting issues were a biggie – I know how to combat that now.

I submitted six more photos, three of which were approved.  This is an approval percentage that I can live with, an approval percentage that keeps my ego in check.  I have a lot of learning, practice, patience, etc. etc., ahead of me before I feel comfortable writing a How to Get FoodGawker to Approve Every Photo post, but in the meantime…  Here’s what I’ve learned:

1.  Lighting.  Natural light is key.  Unless your kitchen has a gyrnom window, avoid taking pictures where you’re cooking.  Find a window in your home that lets in a good amount of soft light.  Avoid windows that let in too much light or you’ll find yourself with a ton of harsh shadows.

2.  Composition.  FoodGawker is not a fan of a tight photo.  Judging from the photos above, I’d say that the area of interest is about 50-75% of the frame.  The remaining 25-ish% is clean and doesn’t distract the viewer.  Also, cropping the photo before submitting will allow you to  have more control.

3.  Sharpness.  Other than the blurry lemon in the salmon cake photo, I haven’t had much luck with photos that have blurry backgrounds.  If you’re like me and you’re into the low aperture look, try snapping shots with a high aperture that you plan on using solely for FoodGawker.

I hope, hope, hope that in another year I can write that How To that a sarcastically mentioned above, but until then, I hope these mini pointers help!