Episode 581: How to Create Better Recipe Videos on Your Phone with Leslie Osborne

EBT581 – Leslie Osborne

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

Megan Porta  00:38

Are you one of those people who feels like you’re held back by recording recipe videos for your blog or maybe reels for Instagram, just because of all of the hassle involved with getting out your DSLR and learning how to record video there and getting all of the stuff going, if you are you are going to love the information shared in this episode. Leslie Osborne is the blogger at Bessie Bakes. She also has a photography backdrop business. She shares literally everything you will ever need to know about creating great recipe videos on your phone, you’ll get the minutest details about what you should do, what you shouldn’t do inside this interview, including, but not limited to getting really close up to your food, filming your videos in 4k in 60 frames per second, considering the lighting, lighting is always so important, And she gives really detailed tips about that, and using a video filming app instead of filming directly in your phone, and there’s so much more involved, you’re gonna love this one. It’s episode number 581 sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  01:52

Food bloggers, have you experienced traffic loss after the recent Google updates. Are you feeling confused about how to move forward? I get it. I have been a food blogger for nearly 14 years. And I’ve been through the wringer with industry changes and business changes. You name it, I have been there. When I look back over my tough times. The thing that pulled me out of slumps and traffic loss and disappointment was always people. We need each other right now more than ever. You are in this food blogging game for the long haul I know you are. And that means you need to find people to collaborate with to connect with and to learn from. Eat Blog Talk has two great options for you coming up. The 2025 Eat Blog Talk mastermind groups and in person retreats. We are now taking applications for the 2025 mastermind groups. This year we’re splitting the group’s in two. It’ll be intermediate and advanced and beginner. We also lower the price to accommodate traffic and revenue dips a lot of us are experiencing apply now as the first four people let into the group will receive 20% off the whole year. Go to eatblogtalk.com/mastermind to apply today. And there are still a few spots remaining for the 2020 for Fall Retreat, which is also discounted this year due to revenue loss for so many. Join us in October in Minnesota. It is my favorite time of year here in Minnesota for three incredible days filled with laughter, great food, tons of learning and connecting and honestly, they’re just so much fun. You will not regret attending this retreat, head over to eatblogtalk.com/retreat to apply for that today. I hope to see you in one or both of those spots. I can’t wait for the next 12 months and to see all of your businesses explode. And trust me having those people in your corner is going to help. 

Megan Porta  03:54

Leslie started her food blog beaks in 2015 after going to artisan bread and pastry school in Chicago in 2012 she wanted to have a food based business, but after having her son, she realized that she needed to work from home, but still share her recipes and passion for baking. After really struggling with food photography because she couldn’t find affordable yet high quality backdrops, Leslie started learning how to make her own in 2019 she launched Bessie bakes backdrops and began selling her own line of lightweight, cleanable photography backdrops on her own website and Amazon. Along the way, Leslie has personally done all the photography and videography for her products and social media accounts and shares lots of tutorials and behind the scenes content on Instagram and YouTube. 

Megan Porta  04:37

Hello, Leslie. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Leslie Osborne  04:40

I’m doing well. How are you doing?

Megan Porta  04:43

I’m doing well. Also, I’m super excited to chat about taking recipe videos on our phones. I think a lot of people are actually going in this direction, which is kind of refreshing. Right before we get to that, though. Do you have a fun fact to share with us?

Leslie Osborne  04:57

Yeah. So I was thinking about this, and I think. A fun fact about me is that in I think it was 2009 I tried to start a food blog and but I didn’t know that you had to resize your images. So it took me hours and hours to upload all of the step by step photos and the recipe photos to the food blog that I had. Oh no, and I gave up after a month, because I didn’t, I didn’t. I just had no internet wisdom at all, and didn’t know that all I had to do was just look it up and, like, troubleshoot why that was taking and so yeah, it took me a few years to get back into it, but yeah, that was a fun fact about me.

Megan Porta  05:37

Well, to your credit, back then, information wasn’t so readily available. So I don’t fault you at all, but you know what your story is, your story and you started at exactly the right time. I believe that. So happy to have you here today. So kind of to frame our chat, too. I would love to hear about your food blogs. I know you have Bessie Bakes, yeah, and then also you have another business that serves food bloggers. So tell us about both of those. 

Leslie Osborne  06:05

Yeah, so in 2015 when I finally started to I was like, I’m going to give this a go, a second time around, my son was a few months old, and so I was at home part time with him, and I thought, you know, I really want to give this food blog a go. I’ve been thinking about it for years. And so I, again, I had all I knew was how to check my email and I would check recipes online, but I literally knew nothing else when it came to anything internet wise. And so it was a big, big struggle to start from ground zero, and I struggled with the photography aspect, probably more than anything, because, again, it’s a skill that you have to work on for months and years, and your skill always expands and grows. And I was really struggling with the photography aspect, and then kind of that led me down, like this path of, like, my photos don’t look that great, and I feel like this is making my blog suffer a bit like it’s not growing, like I would want it to. And I would say about so in 2018 about three years later, I started looking into like, how to make my own backdrops. So I kind of shifted from food blogging to like, Okay, what kind of product can I offer to food bloggers? Because my food blog just isn’t growing, but I feel like I have all these skills that I would like to kind of nourish and kind of grow. And my husband was like, Hey, why don’t you, like, start selling backdrops? You know, there’s, there was at the time, there was only two things available. It was really expensive, hand painted, hand plastered, ones that I really couldn’t afford, or really, really, really cheap vinyls, and I couldn’t really find anything in between. And so like, for several months, I studied and, like, researched and tested how to make my own backdrops, and then I launched Bessie Bakes Backdrops in 2019 so I’ve kept my food blog going that whole time. I haven’t updated a post in several months, but I want to get back into that, but it’s still going, and I’m still kind of juggling both, but I thoroughly enjoy actually being able to work like offer something to food bloggers, because they’re like my favorite people, because they we get each other you know so. 

Megan Porta  08:10

Well, you and I are on the same wavelength there. I feel the exact same way about food bloggers. I was just looking at your backdrops, and these are beautiful.

Megan Porta  08:19

Oh gosh, thank you. Okay, I’m

Megan Porta  08:21

gonna look at the one I was looking at here. It’s black, the black tile backdrop. Oh my gosh, that’s so beautiful. 

Leslie Osborne  08:30

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that I believe the one you’re talking about is I had worked with Rachel Kornick from Two Love Studios, and we had launched two different versions of white tile backdrops and black tile backdrops a few years ago. And so those are some of my all time favorites for sure, so.

Megan Porta  08:46

What a great business to start too, because this definitely serves food bloggers. Every single one of them is looking for this, and you’re right. For so long, there were no options available that weren’t super expensive or bulky or just very cheap.

Leslie Osborne  09:02

Yes, yes. 

Megan Porta  09:03

I’m excited about this. Okay, well, thank you for giving us that information. So use you mentioned that your photography had been a struggle for a while. Is this what led you to start digging into creating recipe videos on your phone?

Leslie Osborne  09:18

Yeah, so the story behind that is just like so many others, like in terms of people that are on Instagram, that have had their Instagram accounts for years, we’ve all noticed, like a shift, and I would say the last couple of years, where engagement is really down. Photos don’t work as well anymore, or your followers are not seeing your posts. And I was using my DSLR camera to shoot videos with, because I would use that to also take photos. So I was kind of doing double duty with that. But I just found that the DSLR videos, even though I liked the quality that I was putting out there, they just weren’t getting the engagement and interestingly enough, I listened to an episode of yours with Lexi from Crowded Kitchen, oh yeah. And she talked about recipe phone videos. And I was like, wow. And then kind of a light bulb went off, and I was like, I have to, I have to figure out how to do this and how to overcome the challenges with phones, because my Instagram is just suffering, and I really need, I don’t want all this work that I’ve put into it to go down the drain over the years. So it really took a lot of her advice on, like, what really makes content like, grow and go viral, and what makes your account grow. But then I also had to figure out the technical aspects of, like, how do I actually make my videos look better? Because phone videos have really issue, big issues with showing accurate color. They make things look almost like they muddy looking, or will create like a silver sheen or cast over your scene. And I was just really frustrated with the quality of the video that I was filming. I just wasn’t happy with it. And so I kind of had to spend a few months, dive it into like, How can I do this? And then maybe I can share these tips with other food bloggers, because I feel like other people are struggling with it as well.

Megan Porta  11:08

Yeah, I think you’re right, and good for you for just deciding I’m going to figure this out and learn it, and now you can share it with the rest of us. So thank you for doing work for us. Leslie, okay, so what are some of your top tips? I know you had to have learned a lot.

Leslie Osborne  11:24

Yeah, so I feel like we can, let’s start with, like, low hanging fruit, right? Let’s start with the things that actually are super simple tweaks that we can make right off the bat. So one of the, I think the best ways to improve the quality of your videos is actually filming your videos in 4k and 60 frames per second. So video, by default, will usually film in HD and 30 frames per second. So that’s with DSLR cameras as well. So on your phone, it will default to HD 30 frames per second. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but, but on phone, specifically, that extra 4k heavier footage with the 60 frames per second in increases the clarity and the quality of the video like nothing else like it made it, makes it look like almost a different camera. And the reason for that is is the footage is much heavier, but there’s more frames that you can work with. And so one of the benefits to that is, is that when if you are shooting at 60 frames per second, if you’re doing something where you need to slow down the footage like a pour shot, and you really want to drag that footage out and slow it down, the clarity is going to be better, because there’s more frames for the video to work with. And also, what’s great about that is, when you zoom in on your footage or crop it, the quality is going to be better because, again, you have more frames. So the quality of that footage, if you’re editing your video, is just going to be better all around. And I would say, probably like the biggest fun tip in terms of that is you can screenshot some of the step by step parts of your video, and you can actually use those as photos on your food blog. So if you use a DSLR camera, you film like you take your photos for your final dish. But let’s say you filmed a video and you don’t have time to shoot to do double duty with doing a recipe video, plus step by step photos, you can actually screenshot that higher quality footage and put that in like grids on your blog, and then use those as photos for your recipe. 

Megan Porta  12:14

Oh my gosh, worth the price of admission, right there. Thank you. That was gold. And then is it easy to do this on most phones? I don’t think I’ve ever even looked into this as far as like, changing to 4k and 60 frames per second. 

Leslie Osborne  13:43

Yeah. So on my iPhone, specifically, when you’re in the video portion, you’ll see up on the right hand top of the screen, it’ll say HD 30. And so you can click on that, and then you can change the frames per second or go up to 4k so that’s how I do it on my phone. Now, Androids might be a little bit different, but there’s usually going to be a setting when you’re in the video portion of your phone, and then you can change it right there. So yeah, it’s like, as quick as that.

Megan Porta  14:11

I cannot believe. I’ve never seen that. It’s right there, literally. And then, yeah, once you change it, does it kind of, does it stay there? Do you have to change it? Oh, no, it stays there.

14:20

So it will stay if it knows that you’re going to go back to it, but once you kind of get out of the video app, it will probably default back. At least mine does. So you may have to check it every time, but you’re probably going to start noticing the more that you use it, the more, because you’re going to instantly see when it goes from HD to 4k 60 frames per second, the quality completely changes. And so one of the things that happens is, if you’re moving your phone around, the footage is so much more stable, as if you’re using a gimbal when it’s in 4k 60 frames per second. So it’s more stable and it looks more fluid, and it’s not as shaky, and it’s a lot less grainy and noisy. 

Megan Porta  14:58

So yeah, okay, I think we can end our call now. No, thanks. Leslie, seriously, that was so good. Okay, what else I’m so excited for more. What else do you have for us? 

Leslie Osborne  15:06

Okay, well, just remember, with 4k your video file sizes are gonna be enormous, and so what you’re gonna wanna do you either keep them on your phone, you can edit directly on your phone with an editing app, or if you wanna send them to yourself on your computer. You can upload them into Dropbox or Google Drive, and you can get those apps on your phone, and then, boom, put them on the app, and then it’ll download to your own Dropbox or Google Drive folder, and then you download it for yourself. And so that’s a way that you can kind of figure out, Oh, if I need to send this to myself. So just I wanted to clarify, because you might be stuck thinking, Oh, my God, what am I going to do with this enormous footage that I can footage that I can’t send anywhere? So, yeah, that’s funny. So yeah. So I see the second thing again, low hanging fruit, right? This is to get up close to your food to really highlight the recipe and the textures of the recipe, because the recipe then becomes the star. So what I’ve noticed about a lot of viral recipe phone videos is like, there’s really not a lot going on in the background. They are really inside the bowl or inside the plate, or whatever they’re using and whatever they’re making, and it’s just like, it just jumps off the screen. And so if your phone is a little bit further back, what you can do to kind of hack your way into getting up close is you can zoom in and zoom out. You can either use your fingers manually, or you can hit the two times zoom or three times zoom. And what that’s going to do is hyper focus on the food, and it’s going to blur the background around you so like your phone, it doesn’t have as much of the capabilities to have a shallow depth of field like a DSLR camera would. However, when you zoom in, it’s going to naturally blur the background. So it’s kind of a way to trick your phone into kind of becoming like a macro lens. But you just don’t want to overdo it, because then it’ll start to get grainy past a certain point.

Megan Porta  16:57

Yeah, so it probably just takes a little playing with, I imagine. 

Leslie Osborne  16:59

Yeah, just play around with what angle kind of looks best, and don’t go too far in. Or you’ll probably just want to adjust the position of your phone. Yeah. And then I said the the next really easy way to do that, to really get hyper up close to your footage, is you, actually, most of my footage is filmed when I’m filming it at a 45 degree angle. I’m flipping the phone upside down. And so what that does is the lens, then is lower to the backdrop stand or the backdrop or the food, so it, instead of it being above it, it’s right at eye level. And so it’s upside down when you’re filming. But then when you edit, you just flip it around. So like in my phone, I’ll hit I’ll hit Edit, and then I’ll go to crop, and then I’ll just turn the footage 180 and boom, it’s right set up, so then you are viewing it in the correct position. 

Megan Porta  17:47

Oh, okay, I never would have thought to do that. Amazing. All right, anything else on that Leslie?

Leslie Osborne  17:54

So I would say just getting up close is, like a really, really, just easy way, but we can definitely kind of go into a little bit more of like the technical stuff. Now, if you’d like. 

Megan Porta  18:04

Yeah, go for it. 

Leslie Osborne  18:05

Okay. So really, one of the biggest challenges with phones is their struggles with getting accurate color, and what that ends up looking like. Like I said, is like a silver cast over your food, even your can maybe almost have a weird silver sheen, because that’s the way it’s reading the highlights, or it can make your food look muddy. And what I have found is the reason for that muddy look is it’s over saturating some of the texture and the shadows in your food, and then it so then it just makes your food look too dark, and it the vibrancy of the colors of the food just kind of disappear, and your phone just can’t really read the color accurately. It actually gets worse the closer up you are, if you’re further away from your food, like really, like several feet back then, like, the auto adjustments will kind of play in, and then the colors will usually balance. But we want to get up close to our food. So a way, the easiest way to overcome this is to actually use a an app to film your footage in instead of using your phone to film the footage, you download a video filming app. And these apps have they give you full control over all of your camera settings as if it were a DSLR camera. So you can adjust your white balance, warmer or cooler, and that, in and of itself, is going to fix 90% of your color issues. You can film in 4k 60 frames per second. You can adjust the focus the ISO. All of those settings are built in, because a lot of phones don’t have those things built in, oddly enough. 

Megan Porta  19:44

Sothat’s really interesting. I’ve never considered that either. Do you have examples of apps to use?

Leslie Osborne  19:50

So two of them I have used personally, and they’re both excellent. The first one that I’ve used is Black Magic Filming app. That’s a really great one. And then. Filmic Pro, f, i, l, m, i, c, Filmic Pro, those both work the same way, and they actually can even hook up to an iPad as well. I know the Filmic Pro can, but, yeah, I just download one of those. And currently I’ve been using the black magic one, and it’s just been working miracles. And then then, like, everything that’s in my scene looks like the color that it’s supposed to be. So I’m like, Oh, hey, here’s a cucumber and it’s a beautiful, vibrant green color. Well, if my white balance and my camera settings are adjusted before I start filming, that’s the big key. You really need to get this before you start filming, because it’s very hard, if not impossible, to fix it on the back end, if the color is way, way off.

Megan Porta  20:42

Okay, so if you use one of those, let’s say I also use in shot to kind of compile reels together. Do I need to use them separately, or can I use just one of the options that you mentioned?

Leslie Osborne  20:56

So those apps don’t have an option to add, or at least, I haven’t used Filmic Pro in a while, but Blackmagic doesn’t have an option for me to edit my footage. So typically, those are going to be different apps, unless it’s an all in one. But even like the really professional like Adobe programs and stuff, they don’t have the capability to do to both film your footage and edit it, which would be phenomenal if they did. So, yeah, that that’ll be two different apps that you’ll you’ll mess with.

Megan Porta  21:25

Okay, got it. I’ve heard of people, I think, in my mastermind group, who use Filmic Pro but how much of an investment are these apps? 

Leslie Osborne  21:34

So usually they’re about 10 to $15 a month. And now I would say if, if if you see yourself really diving into recipe, phone videos and you’re really struggling, but it’s really working for you, if that strategy is really working, you could number one, you could test it out if you’re unsure, and you could cancel the subscription. You know, as you know, if it wasn’t working for you, if that strategy was not working for you, but if you really see yourself diving in and using recipe phone footage footage, and then also repurposing it on other platforms as well, like on YouTube shorts or Tiktok, or even uploading those vertical videos to your blog, then it’s absolutely worth the investment, because it will transform your videos. And then you’re not having to double dip into like, do I have to do a separate DSLR video, or do I just use the one that I have with my phone, which, if it looks really lifelike and realistic, people are gonna really, I think love that. Yeah, so that would be my advice for that.

Megan Porta  22:32

Yeah, especially if you’re pulling out still images for process shots for your blog, I imagine it’s probably good to just invest in all of that upfront so everything looks as good as possible. 

Leslie Osborne  22:42

Yes, for sure. 

Megan Porta  22:43

Yeah. Okay, awesome. Another great one. What else do you have two other like,

Leslie Osborne  22:47

these are non technical, but I really think that they add a little something special. Like, it’s like the secret sauce, I think to really making your recipe really pop is, like, I like to say, Get saucy. So think about the sauce, or the drips or the pores, or all those little things that really add richness and depth to your recipe. Don’t if your food is looking quite flat, then it could be that it’s something like a dry salad that doesn’t have any dressing on it. And think how adding that dressing just adds lusciousness and richness and makes it like jump off the screen, or, let’s say, melted ice cream kind of, kind of going down the side of the bowl, or melted chocolate being drizzled in, or at even adding oil to noodles just makes the noodles shine. And this could also relate to like drinks, like the, you know what, iced coffee or anything that fizzes. All of these things are going to add some dimension to your recipe, and so do not forget to add your sauce and then. And then, on top of that, I would say, if you can add some sound at key moments of the video, then adding that sizzle of the pan, or the fizz in the drink here, in that little bubble texture, or the chopping of the vegetables, or whatever it is you’re chopping, or especially something crispy, like a little crisp sound, even if it’s not the entire video, but it’s key moments. I think that also is another little thing to add a little extra depth and like richness to like, bring people into your recipe.

Megan Porta  24:22

Those are such little touches that can go such a long way. I think, right? Just, yeah, you can do I love ASMR videos that I see on Instagram as I’m scrolling. It’s just like, just that little pop of sound adds so much. I think.

Leslie Osborne  24:38

It’s like, you can taste the food, right? Like you hear that and you’re instantly brought into what does that recipe taste like? You know, it’s like the sound itself then creates, because you can’t have smell o vision, we have sound division, right? So that’s why I’d like to think of it.

Megan Porta  24:57

Yep, definitely awesome. Okay, what else do you have Leslie?

Leslie Osborne  24:59

So I think really kind of on the deeper, more technical side, you really cannot underestimate the incredible value of having good quality light into your phone videos. Now this is true of photography as well, but DSLRs have a little bit more leeway if you’re using a tripod, and you can lower the shutter speed if your light is a little bit lower and dimmer. Video, though, even with a DSLR camera or with a phone, you really need adequate light, otherwise, it’s going to be quite grainy and a bit noisy, and then it’s going to reduce the clarity and even the color is going to be directly impacted of your recipe. So I can’t really, like, overstate how important good lighting is. And so this could look like a lot of different things. So we could talk about natural lighting, like window light, and then we can also talk about artificial light, and both of those are incredibly important for getting a handle on like, how do I set up my lighting to really make my recipe video really shine?

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Leslie Osborne  27:06

So in terms of like natural light, obviously, whatever windows you have, if you have multiple windows that you can potentially film next to, it may depend on what your workflow look like. Where’s your workspace, what is going to be most convenient for your setup. And then you’ll you’ll just kind of need to understand, like, where the sun is in coordination with that window. Are there trees covering it or bushes, or is it uncovered? And are you getting enough light for long enough to kind of get solid light? So you have to play around with the different windows in your house or in your office, wherever you’re filming and try to get kind of the best quality light. It doesn’t have to be like overwhelming full sun. It just needs to be even and well lit. And then, as long as you’re using a video filming app, especially, you can really then increase exposure just enough so that you can expose the video properly, so that the lighting is really adding a great depth and dimension to your video. So if you want to have soft lighting, and you’re next to a window that has full sun, but you want to soften it up, obviously you can use a diffuser. And so diffusers are just one of those tools that you just really, really need for photography and for videography, because you want to be able to manipulate the light to make it give you the look that you want to have. So if it’s full sun and you want soft light, you can use the diffuser. But if you want hard light, obviously you can put the diffuser away. And so one way to kind of add a little bit more light into balance the light in video is just using a white bounce card on the opposite side of the light, and what that white balance card is going to do is going to soften those shadows and help to balance the color in your video. Because video needs a lot of light, sometimes you just need to balance the light in and because phones tend to over saturate the shadows, that’s going to soften that. And oftentimes that will kind of fix some of your white balance and color issues as well. So a little bounce card, you can get them at any craft store for a few bucks. They are phenomenal. So definitely, having a diffuser and a bounce card available for lighting is just is going to be super, super helpful.

Megan Porta  29:15

So a lot of experimentation, I imagine. Yeah, definitely. 

Leslie Osborne  29:19

And you know, here’s like, a really easy way to get amazing natural light. I don’t know if you’ve been seeing this lately, but I’ve been noticing a lot of food recipe videos where people are filming outside. Now, the idea of filming outside feels very overwhelming, because there’s bugs and there’s gusts of wind and there just it could be a complete mess, but if you just wanted the final reveal of your dish to have beautiful lighting. Just take your bowl or your plate or whatever and take it outside for a second, and just use your phone freehand and film it over the grass or in front of trees or bushes or flowers, and then you’re getting incredible light for the final portion of your dish. So let’s say your lighting. In your kitchen is kind of So, so, but you want to film it in a real space, like in your kitchen, you get whatever lighting you have in there, and you show yourself, kind of preparing your recipe. And then the final reveal. You can take it outside, or you can, if you have a patio, you can just go out in the patio and film like, put it on a table or on your background, whatever you’re using, and then get a little bit of extra light just by going outside. 

Megan Porta  30:23

Yeah, that’s a great tip. And then what do you use? Do you use natural or artificial?

Leslie Osborne  30:28

So for phone recipe videos, it’s a combination of both. I have been using more and more. I typically use not artificial light, 90% of the time or more, I’d say almost 100% of the time for my photos and for my videos, but when I started doing recipe videos, I wanted to show behind the scenes a lot for the tutorials that I’m doing. So I’ve been using more natural light. And so it’s about 50/50, but I’m really going to be diving into an artificial light tutorial, because artificial light can be amazing to use, but it can be really tricky. So that’s actually going to be something that now I’m going to be diving into more artificial light so that I can have full control over the light from start to finish the recipe, yeah, but I would say in terms of natural light, hard, beautiful, full sun light, there’s nothing that makes a recipe shine more because, again, you’ve got more available light, and what it does is it highlights all of the sauces and the oils and increases the vibrancy of the color of the food. So if you have hard light, you can do that outside as well, but for the final reveal of the dish. But if you have hard light available, that’s definitely going to make your recipe shine, but you don’t have to use it, but it’s just a nice thing to kind of add in at certain moments of your of your video. But you could absolutely achieve that with artificial light, and then that way you have full control over, you know, over the actual how much light you get, and it doesn’t have to shift and change. So, yeah. 

Megan Porta  31:57

Yeah. I love the recommendation to use hard lighting for maybe the hero shot. Because I don’t, I feel like, as food bloggers, food photographers, we’ve been taught, or maybe we’ve just, like, self taught ourselves to not do that. But you’re right. It really can put an emphasis on, like the oily sauce, or the the oil on the noodles or whatever. So experimenting with that for the hero image might be, yeah, it might be really fun.

Leslie Osborne  32:27

Actually, do a really good job of adjusting the auto adjusting the exposure so that everything isn’t blown out. So what can happen with in photos is that if your shutter speed is too low, or if your camera settings are causing the lens to be opened too wide, it’s letting too much light in, so it blows everything else you actually can’t see the food. All you’re seeing is like this really bright haze, sure, but with a phone, typically, that will auto adjust, so that you kind of get a juxtaposition of that beautiful, hard light, but then you see the richness and the depth of the shadows, and you can still see whatever you’re filming in your screen. So they do actually, I think actually phones, this is where they have a leg up. Is they auto adjust for lighting a little bit better than, say, DSLRs do without you having to really tweak much about it.

Megan Porta  33:19

Do you have tips specifically for artificial lighting? 

Leslie Osborne  33:23

Yes. So it’s a very big topic, but I will say there are few key things to really look out for that can really help you overcome some of the challenges of why artificial light, it can be difficult to work with, or just doesn’t look real, and that can be kind of broken down into like two or three different things. I would say right off the bat, a lot of the reasons why artificial light does not look realistic, it looks kind of fake and sterile is typically the white balance. So that can be one aspect of why it looks too maybe it looks too blue or magenta and it doesn’t look warm enough. So again, you just use a video app if you have it, to adjust your white balance. And another reason I think why artificial light often looks fake is because your light itself needs to be powerful enough to fill your entire scene with light in order to kind of reduce the dark areas in your scene. So I like to think of it like this, the sun is a big, giant fireball in the sky that’s like a gajillion gabillion times bigger than any light that we have, right? So it fills our world with light. And if you have enough light next to your window, it’s going to fill your scene with light, even if it’s overcast, right? But when you use artificial light, because it’s a much smaller light source, you’re only going to be able to light a certain amount of space. So if you light a large kitchen with one artificial light, typically you’re going to have a lot of dark space behind you or to the side of you on kind of far away from the light. So you’d have. Use multiple light sources in order to fill your kitchen with light, but when you’re just using a surface or a table and you’re doing up close recipe, phone videos, one light is all you need, but what you have to do is balance where the light is to where your food is, and again, adjusting your exposure is going to really help, but actually find that one of the simplest ways to balance the light is, if your shadows are looking really, really dark, and it just doesn’t it’s not filled up with enough light, you can just use a bounce card on the opposite side there you can have, I would say you have two different sizes of bounce cards. Have small ones, and then have a little bit bigger ones, because you might need a slightly larger one to really bounce a lot more light in. Again, that’s going to help with color, that’s going to help with the vibrancy, and it’s going to soften the light and fill in those darker areas so that it looks more balanced visually. And then I would say different types of diffusers. So like, if you want a soft, natural light look, you’re definitely going to want to use a diffuser. And so there’s like, three different kinds of diffusers for an artificial light that you can use, that you know are common to use. One is a very inexpensive umbrella. I got one, I think, on Amazon, for like, a little over $20 and it’s shaped just like an umbrella. And the great thing about the umbrella is it hooks directly into, like a little hole underneath the light itself, and then it attaches to the stand, so it’s not like a separate thing that you have to set up. But or you can use the softbox if your if your light has a softbox that comes with it, I just find them trickier to use because there’s so many, like hinges, and they drive me insane. But the soft boxes can work phenomenally well. But actually, my favorite kind of diffuser is the ones that have the springs on them. So, like, you can fold them up, like a little taco or like, and they fold up into this small little circle or square, and then you open them up, and then they spring out. And so they’re quite large. Those I place like a maybe a foot away, in front of the light. And there’s something about the way it diffuses the light that just makes it look so much more even. And so you either kind of stand it up and lean it on the table if it’s large enough, or if it’s not, you will need to hook it up to like a little light stand in front of it. So there’s a pros and cons to the different diffusers in terms of, like, space you should usage and all that. But like, those individual diffusers, I think are just really fantastic, and you can use them with natural light as well. 

Megan Porta  37:29

If somebody does want to go the route of artificial light, would you recommend doing it in a space that doesn’t have access to the sun? Just to kind of simplify things. 

Leslie Osborne  37:39

You can, you absolutely can, or you just draw the shades honestly. And I think with recipe phone videos, it doesn’t matter as much, like a lot of people for photos will tell you, like, just block out all your windows. If you have shades, close the lights, and then that way you don’t have contradictory sources of lights. You’d have multiple sources. But I think for recipe phone videos, because they need a lot of light, you can play around with like, maybe I’ll close the shades, but maybe there’s a little bit of ambient light still coming through. It’s not completely dark in your room. Just keep it that way and then put your light up and just have it in the same position of where the sun is coming in, if that makes sense, so that it’s not a light on the opposite side of where the sun is, or just play around with the with the position of it, and then actually, that ambient light around the room might actually add that filler light that you need if it’s a little bit too dark. So it just really depends on the power of your light, but you can definitely play around. And I’m I have a really dark space that I work in, but I sometimes will just draw a shade, and then I’ll set it up in any kind of room, and then there’s really no issues, because it just it fills in the necessary light that you need. If that makes sense for for your phone, at least. 

Megan Porta  38:54

Right? That does make sense, awesome. Yeah, I think lighting is so important, right? Like, if you have crappy lighting. It’s just such a turn off, even in this world of going toward being like, more real and not as refined, I still think that lighting is so important.

Leslie Osborne  39:09

So, I mean, I think it’s an incredibly important point that without light, there’s just, there’s nothing right, like you need it, no matter what you’re doing for your camera, for photos, for your blog, but for video, like it can’t be understated how important beautiful light is. So we can have best of both worlds. We can do more raw and realistic, but if we have beautiful light, that raw and realistic just looks better. You know, like window light in a house can literally transform a space and how the home feels. And I think the same is true for actually, the quality of the video. It makes you it makes you feel something. You know, when you see something that’s lit really beautifully, it adds it’s, again, it’s another layer and depth to your to your video. So lighting is, is definitely kind of that. That, that UN that, like, non-negotiable, that we’ve got to have, right? 

Megan Porta  40:04

Totally agree. All right, any other tips for recording on our phones?

Leslie Osborne  40:08

So I would say in like, the last tip for artificial light is, I don’t have one of these, but I’m really hoping to get one. But let’s say you’re really unhappy with the hue of your light, or you don’t have a light yet and you want to invest in one, there are lights that are called bi color lights. They’re called bi dash color, and what that means is they have the ability to actually, you can adjust the Kelvin number on the light itself, so you can adjust the white balance of the bulb, so the bulb can be warmer and more sunny, like a yellow sun, or it can be cooler to kind of almost replicate kind of a cloudy day. So those bi color lights are phenomenal because you can adjust the white balance of the light itself, if it’s not looking if it’s not giving the type of hue of light that you want. And so you can and they I think the price now is about close to what my light was like. I have a Godox light, which highly recommend the brand, and so the light that I have is a single light, but the bicolor light isn’t that much more, I think, than what I paid for mine a few years ago. So definitely look out for those, because those can be really, really transformative.

Megan Porta  41:19

Do you have an approximate price point. I have no idea what that would so?

Leslie Osborne  41:24

It really depends on your wattage. So, like, I started out with a Godox 60 watt, which is a phenomenal budget starter light, and I bought it, gosh, four years ago, five years ago, I forget. And so I think at the time it was about $150 and I don’t know if it’s gone up or down now, I then a couple years later, advanced to an SL 106 or 150 watt. And that one was about 250 I don’t remember the exact price, but they the the prices of lighting has really improved. So you can get a great, phenomenal light for under $300 and what is freeing with that is if you can invest that again, we are all kind of in different stages of blogging, but if you’re frustrated with not getting good lighting because you’re chasing the sun around your house and it’s changing, or the clouds are covering it and everything is looking inconsistent, and you feel like you’re frantic and in a rush, learning artificial light can free you from that, because then you control the light and you are you’re able to work at a slower pace and get all the footage that you need in your own time. And then you can also work any time of day as well.

Megan Porta  42:37

Yeah, I don’t use artificial lighting for anything. I’ve heard so many bloggers say that, like, it is a game changer. It frees people up to not stress over the clouds and the the blue sky and all of the things that you’re talking about. So it’s very tempting to go that route I think.

Leslie Osborne  42:53

yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. But I would say, like, kind of the last big pain point, I would say this is probably going to be transformative in terms of your workflow and the angles that you’re going to get with your phone. There’s nothing more frustrating than working with tripods, with with phones. That actually was one of the biggest things that I had to kind of figure out. I’m like, how are these people getting this up close to this footage, and why is their table not shaking? I don’t get it. And there are three types of tripods that I have worked with and that have pros and cons to all three of them. So let’s just kind of go through them and like what they’re good for, but then also what we what is a struggle with each one. So on the low end is your tabletop tripods. I don’t know if you’ve seen those, where they have, like a solid base, and they have a phone clip that they have, like a little arm that it kind of hinges. And you can put those in any direction. The phenomenal thing about them is they’re lightweight. They’re small, and you can put them directly on your countertop or your table or your surface, whatever you’re working on. You can get a flat lay image. You can get 45 degree angles. You can move it around in all different types of ways. The caveat to those is that if your table moves, if you’re chopping something, or if you’re stirring something, and your table is moving even a little bit, the camera is going to shake. And so it’s very difficult to get footage where this is sitting on top of your table without the camera shaking, and you’re actually your hands are moving in the scene, okay, but where they really work well is if it’s on a stable countertop in a kitchen, okay? So the countertop is not going to budge. If you’re chopping and moving stuff around, that is going to eliminate any camera shake. So if you’re doing some of the step by step recipes on your countertop in your kitchen, then it definitely works really well. If you want to set it on your countertop and talk to the camera, it’s real easy to move around, and then it’s so it’s phenomenal for that. Or if you’re using it on a table where there’s no movement, you know, to the table itself, I would say the tabletop tripod can be really, really great, but they can be. They can be frustrating to work with if there’s any sort of camera shake. 

Leslie Osborne  45:03

So if we want to reduce camera shake, we have two options, right? So traditional tripods that don’t have overhead arms, you can definitely use those, but you’re not going to be able to get like, a flat lay angle, like a perfect overhead bird’s eye view, because it doesn’t have an overhead arm. But you can certainly use them to get like, footage, like in front of it, like at a 45 degree angle, and that sort of thing, right? So you’ll use a phone clip. So you’ll need to get a separate phone clip. And they’re super affordable, like, you can get them for under $20 maybe some or even under $10 and you just, it’s a clip that your phone just attaches into, and it’s and you attach it to the threading on your tripod right. And so you can put your phone directly on your tripod that way, because the tabletop ones have the little phone clips already built in. But regular tripods do not. So if you have a tripod with an overhead arm, one of the arms that reaches over so you can get flat lay footage, you hook the phone clip to that as well, and then you can get your flat lay footage. And you can also just turn the angle of the phone, and you can also flip it upside down, if you want more head on, or 45 degree angle footage. But sometimes those can be a little bit they are a little bit tricky to like quickly switch from position to position right? Because when we’re when we’re working recipe videos like there’s you’re on a time crunch, right? If something is happening where your recipe is being developed, oftentimes, though, that food is not going to look as fresh if you’re not moving at a certain pace. So you want to reduce the kind of clumsiness of the tripod. There is no better tripod than a C stand, actually. And I know it’s going to sound a little bit crazy to think, why would I use a gigantic C stand for a recipe phone video that sounds insane, right? Well, I started using a C stand years ago, and there was no piece of equipment that transformed my photos more than a C stand because that large overhead arm got a beautiful bird’s eye view. I got beautiful flat lay images, and I was able to keep my camera stable. And to me, it was just life changing, because the base of the C stand is far away from the arm. It’s out of the way, so I wasn’t tripping on it. So in terms of like maneuvering it, a C stand is just unmatched in terms of, like, getting overhead footage, but when I was playing around with my phone, I attached the phone clip to it, so, like, I have, like a camera mount and a ball head that it hinges and you can move it all around. And then I attached the phone clip to that. Then I started using it for overhead footage. And then I was like, Well, what if I need to get right on top of my backdrop? Like I literally need to be inches away, and I want to be chopping something or on a be inside the bowl. Well that that big C stand arm can articulate in any position possible, and the legs are out of the way, so it hovers way over your table, and you can move it in or out, depending on how far in or out you need it, and it’s so fast to adjust that my workflow was dramatically improved. So if you’re used to using a C stand, it’s the fastest way to switch angles, and you literally can get a phone in any angle, and it doesn’t sit on top of the table, so there’s zero camera shake, and you can get a bird, you can get like that up close eye level view, and I flip my phone upside down, and then you get these amazing 45 degree angles where you’re right up on the food, but the tripod is out of the way and it’s not attached to the table. 

Megan Porta  48:34

Well, it sounds like you’ve been through a journey with tripods.

Leslie Osborne  48:37

I’m sweating thinking about it. Yeah, it though, it took me a while, but yeah, yeah, I honestly, I don’t think I would feel so frustrated if I didn’t have a good tripod situation that it would be almost that would sometimes, if you don’t have the right tripod, you’re probably not even going to start doing recipe phone videos. So like, if you’re going to invest in anything, a phone clip that at least attaches to the tripod that you’re currently using, and then just use whatever angles you can get into it. You know, you can zoom in a little bit if you’re not close enough. So use what you have first and add that phone clip and play around with it, instead of just buying everything and then going all in, you know, just take it step by step and see what works for you and what you already have that you can put into perfect yeast right now.

Megan Porta  49:22

Well, thank you for going through the learning process for us and for delivering all of this value, valuable information. Is there anything we’ve forgotten that you want to be sure to mention Leslie?

Leslie Osborne  49:32

I think that about covers all the topics that I that I was thinking about for today.

Megan Porta  49:36

so many great things. I was going to ask you, if somebody listening is maybe overwhelmed at the thought of using their DSLR, or maybe they are using their camera for video, and it’s just too much. Do you have encouragement for them to just, you know, start with their phone.

Leslie Osborne  49:54

I think the point of entry with a phone is much lower than a DSLR, right? And so there’s no better. To start with what you have. And if there’s so many people that have grown like successful businesses by just using their phone, so start with what you have, and remember, nobody gains mastery by like when they’re first starting out. It just doesn’t happen that way. So you have to give yourself permission to fail again and again and again. And this might take months or years, depending on what it is that you’re learning. But videography is one of those things, and photography, it takes a lot of practice and skill. So no athlete is going to get good at their sport by just occasionally doing something you know, or playing basketball, just you know, here and there. They’re doing it over and over and over again, and they’re putting the work in. So the more work you put in, the better you’re going to skills are going to improve. So depending on how much time you have, it’s going to depend on how fat, how quickly your skills are going to build. But they’re only going to build if you get in there and practice and fail. So it’s just a part of the learning process. Failure. Without it, we can’t learn right?

Megan Porta  51:03

Leslie, this was so good. Thank you. I just ate every single word up I am, yeah, I’m so blown away by the knowledge that you’ve learned over the I don’t know how long it’s taken you, but it’s so impressive. So thank you for sharing it with us today.

Leslie Osborne  51:17

Well, yeah, thank you so much for having me. I just I love, like giving people tips that you know can help because I’ve been there and I’m all I’m always in it with everybody else, so I get how frustrating it can be, for sure.

Megan Porta  51:28

do you have either a favorite quote or additional words of inspiration to leave us with?

Leslie Osborne  51:32

So I was reading a book by Professor Scott Galloway, and he talks about building skills and like finding your passion, but he has a slightly different take, and he says, you don’t have a passion. And then it leads into mastery. The passion comes from mastery itself. And I think what he means by that is sometimes the passion does not come until you have actually worked at a skill for a very long time, and then the passion develops on the other side of that. So I think it plays into learning a new skill. You might not be passionate. I was not passionate about photography for years because I felt like a failure. I was I felt so bad at it, but now I’m deeply passionate about it, and so I will say for me personally, and I’m not. I have not reached mastery level at all, but the passion has come from, like, learning to master a skill.

Megan Porta  52:26

Oh, I love this, because I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs get hung up here because they think, Well, I don’t know where to start, because I don’t feel that intense passion. So then they just don’t start. But sometimes you just need to take that first step into something to start to get to that point. So, oh, I love that so much. That’s amazing. Well, I’m glad you got into photography, and I’m excited to check your backdrops out more. Do you want to tell people where they can find those and where to find you if they want to get a hold of you? 

Leslie Osborne  52:54

Yeah. So if you want to, like, find me, I actually have videos of each of the topics that we’ve talked about. So I’ve done like a a series on Instagram for how to create better recipe phone videos. So you can find me at bessiebakesbackdrops, and that’s on Instagram, and that’s where I’ve got all of like the video Like, they’re like, short, little tutorial vertical videos, and I’m constantly adding new videos to them. But if you want to purchase backdrops, you can find us on Amazon, and I have a website as well. Bessiebakesbackdrops.com but we’re currently revamping it, so you can check us out there and kind of see our styles. But then we have our own brand on Amazon, so we’re Bessie Bakes Backdrops on Amazon. 

Megan Porta  53:35

Awesome. I hope so many people go and check that out and just so appreciate you. And by the way, we do have a show notes page that we’re going to put together for you? If anyone wants to go look at everything we’ve talked about today, all the resources that we chatted about as well, you can go to eatblogtalk.com/bessiebakes. So thank you again, Leslie, for being here. We so appreciate you, and thank you for listening, food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro  54:02

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you are craving accountability, focus and connection at a low monthly cost, join the Eat Blog Talk Accountability Group at eatblogtalk.com/focus. I will see you next time you.