In episode 278, we chat with Chellie Schmitz, blogger at Art From My Table, about how to use your current blogging skills, like photography, to earn money and work smarter, not harder.

We cover information about how to accelerate blog growth with photography, why you should invest in learning more about this skill and why raising your prices helps to match your value plus more tips!

Listen on the player in this post or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.


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Guest Details

Connect with Art From My Table
Website | Facebook | Instagram

Chellie has been a food blogger for 12 years at Art From My Table. Since blogging is a marathon, not a sprint, she’s learned to supplement her blog income in other ways. As a result of sharing her skills with others, Chellie’s been able to launch a photography business as a result of having her blog. Chellie believes in working smarter, not harder.

Takeaways

  • Take your passion and love of photography and share your skillset as another income source.
  • Join Facebook groups to look for opportunities or share your services in finding side work such as shooting photography of a cookbook.
  • Network with bloggers in order to share your photography business.
  • Take pictures of your own content, use what you need and sell the other photos for income.
  • Work smarter, not harder.
  • Batch your work, plan out your shots in advance and stick to that list. Then if you plan to sell some, grab a few unique hero shots to sell.
  • Think ahead in your work flow to make sure you do things like naming photos the best way so later when you need them, they are well organized.
  • Be intentional about creating a workflow in your side jobs as much as in blogging to keep organized and more productive.

Resources Mentioned

The Food Photography Book

How To Photograph Food by Beata Lubus

Two Loves Studio courses – I recommend the course on Lightroom!

Transcript

Click for full text.

278 Chellie Schmitz

Chellie Schmitz: Hi, this is Chellie Schmitz from Art From My Table and you are listening to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. 

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Megan Porta: Hello, food bloggers. Welcome to Eat Blog Talk, the podcast for food bloggers, looking for the value and confidence that will move the needle forward in your business. This episode is sponsored by RankIQ. I am your host, Megan Porta, and you are listening to episode number 278. Today, Chellie is going to talk to us about how to use your photography skills to multiply your income.

Chellie has been a food blogger for 12 years at Art From My Table. Since blogging is a marathon, not a sprint, she’s learned to supplement her blog income in other ways. As a result of sharing her skills with others, Chellie’s been able to launch a photography business as a result of having her blog. 

Chellie believes in working smarter, not harder. Amen to that, Chellie. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so excited to chat with you. Before we get into that though, to photography, we want to hear what your fun fact is today. 

Chellie Schmitz: Okay. Thank you so much for having me. I am honored to be here. Fun fact, when I was growing up, in elementary school, I was in gymnastics and my coach actually wanted me to train for the Olympics.

Megan Porta: Did you? 

Chellie Schmitz: I did not. 

Megan Porta: Oh, no!

Chellie Schmitz: I know. Doesn’t that sound horrible? But I guessQ I loved going and I was into it, but honestly I just didn’t want to work that hard. I wasn’t very sportsy. I’m still not. I just really didn’t have that much awareness, I think, of the Olympics. So my parents were like, that’s fine. We’re not going to push her. While having children now, I totally get that. You nurture, there’s balance there. But I think it’s ironic because I would consider myself now a pretty motivated person. Pretty ambitious. When I looked back at, wow, why did I not do that? It looks like I wasn’t very ambitious.

Megan Porta: It’s probably not a terrible thing. I think there’s definitely good things that can come from doing things like that as a kid. But there are also some harmful sides of it. So maybe your conscience or intuition just knew to protect you from something. I don’t know. I have to believe that.

Chellie Schmitz: Yes. Yeah. I do believe I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

Megan Porta: But very cool nonetheless, to be that good that somebody was urging you to try out for the Olympics. That’s awesome. So cool. So you have kids, do they do gymnastics? 

Chellie Schmitz: They do not. No. My oldest is a boy, and he is really into film production and wants to go into media communications. He’s a junior in high school. He’s currently trying to start a little business editing food videos, no less. He’s done many of mine. 

Megan Porta: That’s awesome. 

Chellie Schmitz: He is also starting his own podcast, which I’m sure you can appreciate.

Megan Porta: Oh my gosh, little entrepreneur there. 

Chellie Schmitz: He’s a runner. He’s not really into competitive sports. I have two of my girls who are into volleyball, and one is into basketball. My youngest is 10 and she’s not in any sports yet. 

Megan Porta: Oh that’s fun. I love that. Love starting off on a personal note like that. Yeah, it gives me a little insight into your world. So thank you for sharing all of that, Chellie. 

Chellie Schmitz: You’re welcome. 

Megan Porta: So we are here to learn from you today because you took your photography skills and you learned how to increase your revenue by tapping into them. So we want to hear your story. How did you first figure out that this was an option and that it was something that would be worthwhile and all of that?

Chellie Schmitz: Yes. Actually, I first got interested in photography. Just a little backstory because when I was having children, I wanted to save a few dollars on their portraits. So I started to learn how to use a camera. But fast forward to when I was blogging, I feel like back in that day, in the day 10-12 years ago, people would not really outsource that much. It was not really a thing to have someone else’s photo or to hire that out. That’s changed a lot but I have had a love and a passion for photography. Once I started getting more into food and it just married together. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but I kept practicing and just invested time in learning it. I was in a mentoring relationship with another blogger that was a lot larger than I was. Guest posting in exchange for mentorship on her blog. One day she said, Hey, can you develop some recipes for me and then photograph them? You don’t have to write anything. I just wanted the pictures and the recipe. It was diet specific and I was like, wait, what? You’ll pay me to do this and I don’t have to write anything because the writing is not my favorite part. So I was like, wow. Yeah. Okay. I’ll do that. So that’s what started it. From there, that just grew, but I did that for a while. Probably for about a year or two with her without having any other clients per se. So I feel like it started out slow, but it was a great supplement to what my blog was doing. 

Megan Porta: I love how it just fell in your lap and you weren’t even really looking for it. It was like a little miracle given to you. Oh, this is an option. I actually love taking pictures. Of course I will do this. That doesn’t happen for a lot of us. That’s really unique and I love it.

Chellie Schmitz: It was almost like, why didn’t I think of that?

Megan Porta: I think now the opportunity is there for photography, outside of our blogs. But you’re right. 10 years ago, that was not an option. That was not a thing. People just didn’t know about that avenue. Blogging hasn’t really evolved enough yet. But now it is. So talk to us about that. How can people start branching out in this way, if they are interested, if this sounds really intriguing.

Chellie Schmitz: One of the things that I found to be the most profitable for me are Facebook groups. I found that kind of ironic because I don’t get a lot of traffic from Facebook, a little bit. I know some people do really well with it. We have all our own avenues. I don’t like it for that, but I do love it for the different opportunities and there’s a lot of groups out there that will hire VAs. Part of that VA is photography. So people are actually looking to hire someone, I think especially we talk about how much blogging has evolved and SEO, right? It’s like the big hot thing. So many people have had audits with Casey and we talk about revamping our old content or updating it.

I know a lot of people that don’t have time to take pictures for that. So they’ll hire somebody to recreate it. Other people will hire you to actually develop the recipe and take the photos. Word of mouth is one area that I’ve gotten clients and then another is from Facebook groups where people will put out their hand looking for this, or I’m looking for that.

Then there’s other groups where you have your recipe all developed and photographed and you can actually sell it in that group. I’ve been quite profitable in that group as well. 

Megan Porta: Can you share which groups those are or is that a super secret?

Chellie Schmitz: I think it’s okay to share because we’re talking to bloggers. Sometimes I’m curious, like how would a blogger feel if they knew, if their readers knew that they didn’t take that picture, but I think that’s more common now. So one of them is the VA for hire. That’s what it is. VA for hire. Content for Bloggers and there is another one called Elite VA. Buy Sell Exclusive content and services. That one, you have to be approved to be a seller, I believe in that one. So people come to that group to both promote their products and to purchase products. But they have a little bit more of a system. Then the other one is called Food Only. This one is for food bloggers, food only. Buy and sell content.

Megan Porta: Yeah. So check those out if you’re listening and this peaks your interest. Then you asked this a little bit earlier, Chellie, do you feel like our readers care and what do you think? I feel like no. I don’t think our readers care whether or not we’re taking the pictures. I do think maybe in the past they did, because it was much more of a relationship back then. They came to our blogs consistently, not social media. They came to our blogs, they left comments. They felt like we were providing all of the information and the value, just us, one person. But now I feel like it’s so different. What do you think?

Chellie Schmitz: I would agree with you. I do think most people, when it all started, were looking for community and they were finding community in the blogs. I think so much of it was personal. You were sharing more stories within your content than just maybe expertise on how to do the recipe. And I think there are still those people now, and I think people that kind of became a part of those communities back then are probably still a part of those communities now. But I would say the vast majority, that’s not even crossing their mind. But I know as somebody who feels proud of my photography or passionate about my photography, because I enjoy it so much. I don’t hire mine out because that’s what I do. But it would have been like, oh, what will somebody think if it’s not my picture? I don’t even know why I would think that now. Just contemplating that. But does that make sense? So I would agree with you. I think they don’t care and more than that, they probably aren’t even thinking about it. 

Megan Porta: Absolutely. We think about it because we are the content creators, but our audience probably is oh, sure. That sounds good to me. They should get their pictures taken somewhere else if they want to. You started out with just that initial blogger. You were taking photos. Then where did it go from there? How did it evolve and how busy did you get? Did you get busy really quickly or how did that all work out? 

Chellie Schmitz: So from there, actually, because I think this was becoming a little bit more popular or accepted, whatever. From there, I saw somebody in, not even one of the groups I mentioned, one of those big ones and somebody was looking, they had put it out there and were looking to hire a photographer and she had a meal planning business. So I responded to that and I got a job with her and I worked with her for a couple of years.

What I loved about working for her was the finished result. So it was much less time consuming. But there was a lot of content. So I did that for a couple of years and I really enjoyed it, but I got to the place where I wasn’t having room for my own stuff anymore. You have to just balance that out and see what’s going to happen. So I ended up raising my prices and that didn’t work for her, which is fine. There’s no hard feelings or anything. So I understood that she understood that. So I stopped doing it there, but I still had picked up other clients.

Another thing that happened as a result of that, was I was hired to do the photography for a cookbook. That kind of came as a, what I would call a divine appointment. I was at a local event like a business boutique or something like that. It was a business thing. A couple of local bloggers were there and I started talking to one of them and, oh, how’s the blog going, how do you do. You check in with each other and see what’s going on. I was like, yeah, I’ve been spending a lot of time doing photography, blah, blah, blah. The moment passed. That was that. A few months later she reached out to me and she said, Hey, we are looking to hire a photographer to shoot a cookbook. I had to pitch it and I had to put in for it and promote myself. I guess pitch is maybe the right terminology there. I ended up getting that job. It’s exciting. It’s wow. Funny as a food blogger, a lot of us food bloggers have our own cookbooks and I do have a couple of e-cookbooks, but they’re not ones that I sell. They’re ones that I share with my readers. But to actually have a physical print, with my photography is exciting. So that also monopolized a lot of time. So I had a year where I pretty much ignored my blog. The good news is it didn’t die. It probably didn’t grow, but it still had some passive income coming in, which was great.

But going from there, I had to ask, where am I going to spend my time? We can’t just do it all. But it was a great way to supplement. I feel like it’s fast money, if I dare say that. I can go out, create a recipe, photograph it and sell it. So whatever that takes. A day. Or however quick you are, depending on what you do.

Megan Porta: Fast money. I love that you said that because with ads, everything is delayed. You create the content that you’ve researched and you put it up, but then you don’t know if it’s going to get traction for six months. Then once it gets traction, when are the ads going to pay out? There’s so much waiting involved when you’re relying on ad revenue. So I love that you said that. This can be a really great way to get money into your hands right now, if that’s what you want. I know a lot of food bloggers want that. 

Yeah. It’s great just to be able to supplement, or if there’s something that you’re saving for, or you want to push yourself. I was just in my mastermind meeting today and we were talking about our goal for 2022. We were talking about financial goals. If this is my goal, how am I going to get there? Am I going to fully rely on my ad income? That would be awesome. But realistically, we know that it’s unpredictable. Everyone right now is talking about how our RPM’s just dropped significantly from Q4 now down into Q1 and we know that’s going to happen. It happens all the time. For me, Q4, I’m the odd man out. It’s not like my biggest traffic of the year, because I don’t have a lot of sweets and baked goods on my site. I do have some, but I am more healthy than not healthy. So my page views right now are the same or better than they were in Q4. But because RPMs have dropped significantly, my revenue is not the same. So if there’s certain goals you have, maybe you’re saving for a vacation, maybe it’s a car, maybe it’s a house, whatever, I think it’s a great way to just supplement because it doesn’t take that much time. I can say, all right, where am I going to carve out a day and shoot a few recipes and then go out and sell them and make a quick buck or whatever. 

I just wanted to 1 thing out. Another thing that you said, about how a handful of things have just fallen into your lap. So the photography to begin with fell into your lap, and then the cookbook situation fell into your lap. I love that because you were putting your good energy, your hard work out there with photography, you loved it. You said that you had a passion for it, and you, I believe, were rewarded for doing that in a, I don’t know, genuine way. So I think that is one of the themes of this episode. 

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Chellie Schmitz: And, you know what? I love that you pointed that out because honestly, I forgot about that, right? Like how it all started. But I would probably tell other people, things don’t just fall in my lap. I probably would say that. It’s perspective. So I think it’s great that you said that. It’s a great reminder to me that oh, yes. 

Megan Porta: That’s another good reason to talk to peers about this sort of thing. Talk through your journey because other people have unique perspectives and certainly different from your own. So we can point things out like that. Whereas you get in your just day-to-day living and a rut of believing things in a certain way. Hearing it differently, I think, is really beneficial because then we can take a minute to look back and pause and just say, oh my gosh, that was a theme. So then you can carry that forward, expecting good things to fall in your lap. 

Okay. So you mentioned this a couple times as well. Working smarter, not harder. I love that you raised your prices and it’s too bad that person couldn’t follow along with you, but I’m sure they understood. But sometimes we just have to do that. I think that is one of the ways that we can work smarter and not harder. So talk to us about that. What are some other ways to do that? 

Chellie Schmitz: I really like batching my work. So for me, and everybody’s different, but I feel like this helps me to work smarter, not harder. When I take a day and that is my photography day. I feel like I can be more focused and I can get things done more efficiently, if that makes sense. So I’ll choose the recipes that I’m going to photograph and do that all in one day. Then another day I might do all of the editing or writing, recipe development. So I tend to group like things together to work smarter rather than harder. 

Megan Porta: I love that. I’m such a proponent of batching. If you listen to this podcast, even if it’s painful and sometimes it is because it’s not always easy to dedicate an entire day to doing one thing. Yesterday was my writing day and I got so much writing done. At the end of the day, I was like, oh my gosh, I felt like I was going to die. This is not fun anymore. I need to be done. But I pushed myself and now I don’t have to write for two weeks. So it’s worth it to just do it, even if it sucks and it does sometimes. Just to push herself a little bit anyway. 

Chellie Schmitz: Yes. Another thing that I do to work smarter rather than harder when it comes to this piece of my photography business, is I can create what’s called semi-exclusive content. For anyone that’s not familiar with that, oftentimes we’ll create a recipe that more than one person is going to use. Usually not more than six people, but many times it’s three to four. So everyone will use the same recipe and they utilize the same process but the hero images of those final beauty shots are all different.

So one thing that I’ll do is if there’s something that I want to create for my blog, I might think, oh, now, how many ways could I shoot this to create it into a semi exclusive piece of content. So then that way I can keep one for myself and then I can sell the others. So now I’ve got the fast money, but I’m also adding content to my own blog, which is going to serve a purpose as well. 

Megan Porta: Oh, I love that. How smart. You’re doing double duty. You’re killing two birds with one stone. But thinking through it on the front end so that you can do that. 

Chellie Schmitz: Yes. I’m a big believer in planning out the content for my photography workflow and that has helped so much. Before I do anything, I’m already thinking about each of those, okay. For one, I could show it on a plate with this linen and this in the background. Another one, I could just show it on a platter or in the casserole dish. So many different ways can I make it look? I had people comment too. I think it was the meatballs that I made that I created as semi exclusive content. So I showed it on top of spaghetti. I show them barbecued, in the crock pot, there’s all these different ways. So it looks very different on the front end.

Megan Porta: That is brilliant. My wheels are turning right now thinking about different ways that we can all do that. If you’re making lemon bars or something. Take advantage of the lemons, take pictures of the lemons or lemon juice, because so many recipes have lemon juice or zest or things like that. There’s so many ways that you can work smarter in that way when it comes to photography. 

Chellie Schmitz: Yes. That’s such a great point to repurpose. I know that there’s a couple of recipes I have where I blanched green beans. Why do I need to shoot that over and over again? I don’t. I can just utilize that if I feel like I need to show that.

Megan Porta: Yeah, I’ve been lazy lately. I’ve been trying to batch a ton of content. One of the things I’ve been doing, which actually was because I’m feeling lazy, but it actually is working a little bit smarter. I just went into my media library. One of the things I did well from the beginning was name my images appropriately. I’m so glad I did that because now I can just type in spaghetti sauce and all of my spaghetti sauce images pop up. I was looking for a bowl or colander filled with cooked spaghetti noodles because I needed it for another post that I was doing. Thankfully I had that in there and it was properly named. So I just used that. But that’s what you’re talking about. I love it. As far as naming images, maybe we could cover that too. How do you name your images? Do you have a system for that?

Chellie Schmitz: I do have a system for that. I think there’s so many different ways to do it. For me personally, I like to name my images by the recipe title, because if I need to reference back to it and I don’t keep any of my images on my computer’s hard drive, they’re all on an external. So if I ever would need to export it again or something happened and I needed to go back and fish for it, that would be my default to call it what it is or to call it what recipe it went with. 

So when I import them into my editing, I use Lightroom. So when I import into Lightroom, I will just name everything “oven baked meatballs” or whatever. But as I’m exporting those images, then uploading them to my blog, they have a little bit more specific of a name. 

Megan Porta: Yeah. This, whatever your process is. I do think it’s worthwhile to think through it and not just name the random numbers that pop up on your camera, because it really does pay off to have them. To have a name that actually makes sense for the file. I had someone really early on when I was just starting out with photography, teach me this and I am so grateful.

At the time I remember being slightly annoyed, like who does he think he is telling me how to name my files, but thank God I did that. I feel like I’ve saved myself so much time by doing that. 

Chellie Schmitz: Did he tell you to name them according to what they were?

Megan Porta: Yeah. So he told me to, I’m just going to pull up so I say it, so he told me to name them with the name, the title of the recipe, not if it’s a long title, just capture it. So not spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes, but condense it down a little bit. So I do that, but then on the front end of the title, I put the date in four characters and then after the title is a series of numbers. So it’s 6 49 and six 50. So it’s the date underscore. Do I do an underscore? I think I do. Then title underscore and then the numbers. Because then if I have spaghetti sauce that I create in the future, I don’t want to take any chances of overwriting any files, so it will always have a unique date if that makes sense.

Chellie Schmitz: Yes. That does make sense. I know somebody that he would, and he’s not a food photographer, but his advice was always to name everything by the date. That just overwhelmed me because I was like, I am not going to know where to look. If I have to find that chicken recipe, knowing myself, I’ll be like, was that 2019 or 2018? So I like that you have the date in there to differentiate between, because we do have things that overlap. But when he was like, just do it by the date, I was like, no, I can’t do that. I’m going to need a little more. But you know, that’s what works for him. That’s great. 

Megan Porta: Yeah, for me, that would not make sense, but yeah, if it works for him, again, find something that works for you, that’s going to help you manage your images well. This was a tangent, but I think it’s really useful and helpful because we take so many pictures of food. So if you’re not naming appropriately, you can start to figure out what that would be for you. Are there other ways to work smarter and not harder when it comes to taking photos and diving into that side of the business?

Chellie Schmitz: So I think that workflow is really important and that’s something that when I’m doing my photography, I have just a whole rhythm that I follow. I did mention that a little bit earlier about planning out what shots I was going to take when I. If I was creating semi exclusive content, but even if I’m not, I’m always planning and preparing what that is going to look like.

I think most of us have a template or at least a rhythm that we follow, in our blog posts. So for me, I start out with a hero shot and then I have an ingredient shot and then I have a collage. Then I have another hero shot and that’s about it. Sometimes I have two collages if it’s a recipe that has more steps. But before I ever begin shooting, I’m already planning those out. I found that to help me be a lot more productive and get through my photo shoots much quicker because I used to not really sit there and plan it. I would just make the recipe and I would photograph every step and I’m very passionate about my food and my photography. So I’ll be like Oh, those ingredients look so pretty like that and not mixed up. So I’m going to take a picture and then I’ll mix it and then, oh, I better have a picture of it mixed. So I’ll take a picture of it mixed and maybe I should do a pour shot. Okay. So I’ll show myself pouring this. So you can get a little bit bogged down.

While I appreciate the beauty in those separated ingredients or something that’s super styled and I still do. I love beautiful styled photos, but the people that are coming to my blog, they want to see a great picture. Yes. I think they appreciate the beauty in the picture, but they may not appreciate the details as much. They want to see what it’s supposed to look like. Am I on track? Am I doing the right thing? So I will lay that out. I’ll read through my recipe and I’ll write down my shot. I’m gonna take a picture of the ingredients. I’m going to take a picture, so what’s going to be the fourth step in my collage.

I’ll plan that out ahead of time and say, okay, this is going to be step one, step two, step three, step four. So then I have my four pictures planned out. If there’s any other part of the process that would be important to show, I’ll make sure I capture that. Then I will take a horizontal picture. I will take the vertical pictures and make sure I have a square. But just to be thinking of those things ahead of time. What do I want my pin to look like? Do I need some space in there to write something? Or is it just going to overlay? So all of those things I know beforehand. Then that helps me zip right through the photo shoot much more effectively. I work much faster that way. 

Megan Porta: I have never heard someone say this before. I think this is gold. Holy cow. I love this.

Chellie Schmitz: It’s so natural to me.

Megan Porta: I think through and I’m like super minimalist when it comes to taking photos these days. I didn’t use to be just because I have so much to do. I’ll be like, okay, I am literally going to take 10 or fewer photos and one of those has to be fine. But as far as actually thinking through which photos to take, I’ve never done that. I’m sitting here wondering why I haven’t done that, but how smart. I love this. I’m so glad you mentioned it. 

Chellie Schmitz: Oh, good. I think you should try it. If you’re not used to it just like anything, it can feel like it’s not flowing that well, but once you get into the habit of it, my productivity is so much better. 

Megan Porta: A little time invested upfront is probably well worth the effort. 

Chellie Schmitz: Yes. Another thing I thought of a little bit earlier in our conversation, we were talking about working smarter versus harder. You had mentioned that I raised my prices. So this is fun. I learned this. I’m a licensed cosmetologist and way, way back was doing hair, this was one of the things that I learned about building my business. Because if you got so booked that you couldn’t take any more clients, you would raise your prices. Because not all of your clients can maybe afford that or would choose to afford that. So you might lose a few, but then you’re not on your feet for many hours or you can cut down your hours a little bit and still make money. So that’s something that I think has just been in my back pocket all those years that I didn’t really think about, but I just know going forward. Okay. When I have room for no one else, then maybe it’s time to up the prices. We all should be thinking about raising our income, right? My hairdresser raises their prices every year. I think that holds true to when you’re, when you have client work too, and I’m sure other professions, VA’s, it’s just part of what the world is today.

Megan Porta: It’s almost like a sign, seeing it as a sign, that it’s time. When you’re at that point where you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m so overloaded. I’m not working smart. I’m working way too hard. That’s almost like your nudge from God or whoever, to like, okay. It’s time. I’m giving you permission to raise your prices. I love that. That’s such a great perspective. Oh my gosh. This has been so packed with good nuggets. I feel like you’re just an incredible smart business woman, Chellie, and thank you for sharing all of this with us and encouraging food bloggers to dig into food photography as a side gig. I think that this will encourage a lot of them actually to pursue it or at least, check it out, consider it. Are there any final takeaways before we start saying goodbye? 

Chellie Schmitz: We’ve covered a lot and thank you so much for your compliments and your kind words to me. I appreciate that so much. 

Megan Porta: Yes, this was truly great. I just appreciate your time today. Thank you for joining me in the episode. It has been such a pleasure to talk to you and learn from you. So thanks for being here, Chellie. 

Chellie Schmitz: Thank you so much for having me. 

Megan Porta: Do you have a favorite quote or words of inspiration to share with food bloggers? 

Chellie Schmitz: I do. So my favorite quote is from the Bible. From Proverbs 3:5-6 and it says trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. Now, this is inspirational to me for a lot of reasons. But I tend to be an overthinker and that can get me going in a not a good path. So there’s been times where I’ve thought, oh, how come it’s not like that for me? I start asking why and trying to figure things out. That would be leaning on my own understanding instead of just trusting in God that I’m where I’m supposed to be and seeking him for the wisdom that I might be looking for. Totally guilty of oh, that person. They’ve only had their blog for six months and they have 5 million page views a month and its not fair. Dare not to compare. So that is one of my takeaways. Just dare not to compare because the comparison trap, as we all know, is not a good place to be. It will land you in one of two places and neither of them are good. You’re either going to feel defeated and terrible and be in a negative thinking pattern or the opposite. You’ll be prideful, right? At least I don’t do that. The comparison trap, as everybody knows, is not a good place to go. But I find with my overthinking and then I want to figure out why. I want to say oh they probably don’t have four kids. They’re probably single and can work 85 hours a day or a week. No one can work 85 hours a day.

Megan Porta: If you’re working 85 hours a day, let me know.

Chellie Schmitz: You have 85 hours in your day? Awesome. This just helps me to stay on track and look to God for wisdom. It’s what I believe and it has helped me stay on track and it’s been a favorite verse of mine, really for all of my life. It has applied in so many different ways.

Megan Porta: I can not think of a better way to end this conversation. Thank you so much for sharing that. I absolutely love it. So we will put together a show notes page for you, Chellie. If anyone wants to go look at those, you can go to eatblogtalk.com/artfrommytable. Tell everyone where they can find you online, on social media, all of that good stuff.

Chellie Schmitz: My blog is artfrommytable.com. I have a contact page, I have a work page. So if anyone is listening and thinking, oh, I’d like to know more about that. They can find me either there, or just email me Chellie@artfrommytable. I’m more than happy to answer questions or whatever somebody might need.

My social media is, pretty much all of it is Art From My Table. Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. I’m like, what’s the other one? I’m missing one. 

Megan Porta: It’s the never ending list that you talk through. Oh, my goodness. Thank you for sharing all of that. Everybody go check out Chellie’s accounts and that’s such a generous offer for you to give to Eat Blog Talk listeners, to just reach out to you if they need help getting going with their food photography. So thank you for doing that. Thanks again for being here, Chellie. Thank you guys, food bloggers for listening. I will see you in the next episode. 

Outro: We’re glad you could join us on this episode of Eat Blog Talk. For more resources based on today’s discussion, as well as show notes and an opportunity to be on a future episode of the show, be sure to head to eatblogtalk.com. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll be here to feed you on Eat Blog Talk. 


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