Mastering Food Photography and Recipe Sharing with Kelsey Byrnes

Introduction to Video and Food Photography: A Gateway to Engagement

For aspiring food bloggers and direct-to-consumer meat businesses, high-quality content is vital for capturing the audience’s attention. Kelsey Byrnes, a food blogger from "Dance Around the Kitchen," shares her insights on simplifying food photography and the exponential benefits of incorporating video content into social media strategies. In this webinar, hosted by Sydney and Katie from ChopLocal, Kelsey delves into practical, cost-effective methods to enhance your food photography and effectively share your recipes.

Watch the recording below or scroll down for a summary and full transcript.

Unleashing the Power of Video Content

Video content has seen a dramatic rise in popularity on social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. Kelsey Byrnes presents compelling evidence from her analytics, illustrating the significant difference in impressions between static and video posts. While a static photo pin might garner 370 impressions, a video pin can skyrocket to 600,000 impressions. She underscores the simplicity of starting with videos, encouraging the use of inexpensive tools like a phone clamp and free or low-cost video editing apps such as Inshot.

Importance of Storytelling and Authenticity

One of Kelsey Byrnes’ key messages is the importance of authenticity in content creation. She advises showing personal stories and the origins of products, especially in the context of farming. This transparency helps consumers appreciate the quality and effort behind their food, fostering a deeper connection with the brand. Kelsey stresses that video content is not just for boosting engagement but is also an excellent tool for brand awareness and audience growth.

Effective Recipe Sharing Practices

When it comes to sharing recipes on social media, Kelsey Byrnes highlights the necessity of giving credit to original content creators to avoid copyright infringement. Instead of copying and pasting full recipes, she suggests using platform features like the "share" button on Facebook or credited re-sharing on Instagram. Such practices ensure respectful and ethical sharing of culinary creations.

Cost-Effective Food Photography Techniques

Kelsey Byrnes assures that one doesn’t need professional-grade equipment to achieve high-quality food photos. Newer phones are quite capable if used intentionally. She emphasizes the importance of lighting—natural light is preferred, and it’s advisable to shoot between 9 am and 2 pm. To maintain consistent color and avoid flat photos, side lighting and turning off artificial lights are key.

Leveraging Props and Backgrounds

Leveraging props and backgrounds can significantly enhance food photography. Kelsey shares her approach to selecting props, focusing on complementing the recipe’s ingredients and flavors. She uses everyday items like kitchen tables, floors, and inexpensive materials like peel-and-stick tiles or foam boards for backgrounds. Functional props, such as fresh herbs or decor, can add a touch of realism and appeal to the photos.

Shooting Techniques and Composition

Proper shooting techniques and composition can transform a photograph, adding dimension and texture. For instance, Kelsey uses grill lines and lightly brushes oil on meat to create a glossy look. Experimenting with angles and light sources, like backlighting and side lighting, can produce unique effects. Additionally, simple garnishes and textures, such as crumpled parchment paper or stacked plates, can enhance the visual interest of food photos.

Post-Production and Editing

Post-production is where the final touches are added to photos. Kelsey recommends simple editing techniques, such as cropping and adjusting color balance, to improve photo quality without overdoing it. Editing apps like Snapseed are user-friendly and offer various features to enhance images. Katie from ChopLocal expresses her preference for Snapseed, promising to share her editing tips via email newsletter.

Repurposing Content for Enhanced Reach

Repurposing content is a strategy Kelsey Byrnes often utilizes. She repurposes previous footage, creating new content like recipe reels with different speeds or music, and uses clips for Pinterest idea pins and B-roll. This technique maximizes the value of existing content, offering continued benefits without needing to create new material from scratch.

Connecting with Followers and Handling Negative Comments

Engagement with followers is crucial. Kelsey encourages connection through various social media platforms and mentions Instagram DMs as an effective way to reach her. When dealing with negative comments, Kelsey focuses on educating misinformed individuals while disregarding or blocking aggressive remarks.

Conclusion: Start Experimenting and Find Your Style

Kelsey Byrnes emphasizes the importance of starting with whatever resources you have and improving gradually. Through experimenting with photography and video, using accessible tools and tips shared during this webinar, content creators can refine their skills and develop their unique style over time. Her closing encouragement reminds viewers to keep improving and stay authentic to resonate with their audience effectively.

Full Transcript:

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:00:00]:
Thank you, everyone so much for joining us tonight. I know if you're in the Midwest, it's been kind of crazy weather, so we're glad that you could all join us and hopefully you're staying safe. But this is, I think, the fifth webinar that we've done so far in this series. So if you're joining us for another webinar, welcome back. And if this is your first time, we're really glad to have you. We do have one more webinar coming up next week and that will be the last webinar in this series, although we do hope to have more in the future. But next week we will be covering Profitable Meat Marketing. And if you joined us for marketing 101 with Matt LaRue, he will be the same presenter for the Profitable Meat Marketing where he'll cover his meat price calculator.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:00:47]:
So we hope you'll join us for that webinar next week as well. But tonight we're really excited to talk about food photography and sharing recipes and how that can help your direct to consumer meat business. And we are joined by Kelsey Burns of Dance Around Kitchen. So she is an expert in these areas and we're really excited to hear what she has to share tonight. As always, we like to share a little bit about Chop Local and what we do here, if you haven't heard of us before. So Chop Local is an online farmer's market specifically for meat. So if you are in the business of selling meat direct to consumer and are looking at selling your meat online, we'd love to talk with you about what the opportunities look like to be a vendor on Chop Local. If you're interested in becoming a vendor, we do have a pretty easy process.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:01:42]:
If you go to our website, sell.choplocal.com you will be able to go to a tab that says sell me online and then fill out our vendor inquiry form. And we'll have a member of our team reach out to you and just discuss what it looks like to become a vendor on Shop Local and then move forward from there. So I know we got started a few minutes late, so I'll go ahead and just pass things on over to Kelsey and get started.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:02:11]:
All right. Hello, everyone. We just started off with a big thunder, so I apologize. Hopefully that won't be too distracting. We have some crazy weather going on right now, so hopefully it won't be distracting and hopefully it also won't stop my connection. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. All right, can you see It. All right, Perfect.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:02:41]:
All right, sounds good. Well, as Sydney mentioned, we're going to be talking about food photography and recipe sharing. And just a forewarning. I know there are a few food bloggers on here, too. We are definitely going to be sticking to the basics. We're going to be talking about doing food photography from your phone. So we're talking super low cost. We're going to be talking about how to do this in a very inexpensive way, and not only from your iPhone or whatever phone you have, but also more inexpensive backdrops and just how to set up your photos to make them more beautiful.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:03:17]:
And they also asked me to share a little bit about recipes and how to share them. I think a lot of times people love to share things on social media, which is amazing, and I love when people share my content, but it's also important to do it in the right way. A lot of times people love to say they got a recipe from Pinterest. Pinterest doesn't create any recipes, so it's always important to connect it back to where that actually came from. So I'll cover that as well. So to get started, I'll talk a little bit about myself and how I became a food blogger. So I grew up in southeast Iowa on a pig, corn and soybean farm. And I really loved cooking and baking.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:04:00]:
And so I decided to go into food science at Iowa State. So that's where my degree is from. After that, I really, really just loved an internship I had at Johnsonville Sausage. So I ended up going back there to be a sensory scientist and worked a lot with consumers, developing new products or changing existing products to be more. To be better for the consumer. So I really enjoyed my time there. And while I was there, I also went to Kansas State on their online program to get my master's in food science. After that, I decided to move back to the state of Iowa.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:04:39]:
My husband at the time was on the east Coast. I was up in Wisconsin. And so we decided to. I don't know if you'd call it meeting halfway, but we sort of met halfway back in Iowa, where we're both from, and we came back to the Des Moines metro area. So I started working at Iowa Pork, doing their consumer work. So I did a lot with our social media and I got to work a lot with bloggers. And that was the first time that I. I guess I was.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:05:07]:
My eyes were open to the world of blogging. I didn't realize right away that it was really could be a career. And I always Knew that my end goal was to be raising a family on the farm. But I was never sure how I was going to make it back to the farm, especially knowing that my husband's family farm is here in Riceville, Iowa, a town of 800 people. As you can imagine, there's not many jobs for a food scientist up here. So when I started learning a little bit about food blogging and I knew food bloggers that used to be elementary teachers and, you know, just do a lot of random stuff. And so I thought, gosh, I have a food science background. I know how to cook.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:05:50]:
I love creating recipes. I don't know how to photograph food, but I'm sure I can figure it out. So now we are up on the family farm. I'm up in northern Iowa. We're just eight miles south of the Minnesota border. And my husband and I and our three kiddos live here. So Dance around the Kitchen started in December of 2018. It was the first time I posted a recipe.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:06:17]:
I think it had one or two photos in it. Maybe they were not pretty. I knew nothing about food photography, but I knew it was a good recipe. And I thought, you know what? I'm just going to go ahead and start. So I started in December of 2018 and then eventually went full time in May of 2020. Of course, that was right after the pandemic hit and some opportunities in our family changed a little bit, and we decided it was the right time to move back to the farm. So I kind of took a leap of faith and went with the blog full time. I currently have about 350 recipes on my website.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:06:51]:
And my most recent exciting thing was being on the Food Network for their. It's called the Big Bad Budget Battle. I was on episode six back in September, so that was. That was pretty neat. So moving into food photography, I think a lot of times when people think, oh, food photography, it's like it seems very intimidating and very overwhelming. But when I started thinking about this, first of all, do you need a fancy camera? No. Do you need fancy props? No. And does it need to take a ton of time? Sure, it can take a ton of time, but you really don't need any of those things.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:07:29]:
If you have a newer Android or an iPhone, it'll be just fine. It's a great start. However, it is important that when you're doing food photography, even with a phone, it needs to be intentional. So you need to know what your goals are going into your photography session. So what's your goal? I know several of you here on the webinar probably sell your own products, so you're probably going to be really heavily focused on a product. For me, I'm more not really selling recipes, but I'm trying to get people to click onto my website and learn more about the recipe. So think, think about what you're trying to do with your photos. Also, what are you going to use the photos for? Is it going to be in an email? Is it going to be on Instagram? Or you want a square photo? Are you going to be on Facebook? Or what are you going to do with the photos? Think about that beforehand and that's going to determine whether or not you want vertical photos or horizontal photos, square photos, etc.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:08:33]:
Also, think about if you're using raw or cooked product. That's probably going to change how you're going to set up your shot as well. And then also what look you're going for. I always love the idea of having consistency throughout my photos. So whether you're on a blog post about cake or you're on a blog post about my French onion pork chops, I want it to have somewhat of the same look. I go definitely more toward the lighter and brighter rather than the dark and moody. But you can kind of see what you like best and what you like photographing best and go from there. All right, so first thing that I always think about is lighting.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:09:17]:
And this part of my presentation probably looks a little dramatic, and it probably is, but I do find the lighting to be the most important thing when it comes to photography. Whether you're shooting with your iPhone or whether you're shooting with a DSLR camera, it doesn't make. It doesn't matter. The lighting is the most important. My preference is to use natural light, which is awesome because that's also your cheapest option. You can go out and buy a big fancy light system. I think maybe in the future that's something that I will pursue just because the weather, um, definitely changes when I can and can't shoot photos. But for now, natural light has been a perfect option.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:10:01]:
I tend to shoot sometime between 9am and 2pm Definitely depends on the time of the year where I'm taking my photos. But that's something you can kind of play around with. That's just when I find that the light is the best. And I always. When you're, when you're working with natural light, you want to make sure that you're shutting all the other lights off in the area that you're in at least. So if I'm shooting in my kitchen, I'm going to shut off the lights in my living room. I'm going to shut off lights in the kitchen, the dining room because it's going to change, it's just going to change the, the warmth or the coolness of your photo. And if you're using natural light, you just want to stick to that only.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:10:44]:
Alright, so this is just a setup that I'm going to show and this is where I typically shoot my photos. And you'll see this setup that I'm going to show a few different times. But I just want to point out a few things. So first off, here on the right side, I'm going to be shooting right next. You want to use probably like the biggest window you have in your kitchen, dining, living room area. So I our dining room table just happens to be by our sliding door that goes out to our deck. So it works really, really well for me. And the lighting is usually good for several hours throughout the day.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:11:21]:
So that's where I'm going. I typically shoot. I usually, as you can see, I do move my table right up to the window and then I have a backdrop. And we're going to talk a little bit about backdrops here in a little bit. But this is one actually that I had just gotten on Amazon. I wanted a light colored one and as our table's a little bit darker, I wanted that to sit on the bottom, the background of the photo. When people think you need fancy stuff for your photos, you can see right here. That's not true.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:11:53]:
That is like an old sheet pan. So you really can use lots of different things. And like I said, we're going to talk more about that here in a sec. This is, this is my focus for the shot. So of course I'm going to be focusing on the sandwich. Everything else is going to be kind of in the background. And then this was yesterday and it was honestly it was a little too sunny to be shooting. As you can see there are definitely some shadows here that I don't love right by the sandwich.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:12:25]:
And, and so I was using a piece of white foam board. So like a dollar at like Dollar General or Walmart. And that's going to help kind of fill that light here in the back of my shot. So most of the light's going to be coming from over here from the window, but that can help fill some space if needed. So if you look at these two photos, I took both of these yesterday, same exact sandwich, same, same setup. It's setting on the same thing, but I have it in two different areas of the house. So one was right next to the window. Using the natural light, I had all the other lights shut off.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:13:05]:
And then the other one I had set up in the middle of my kitchen and had all the lights on, just using the lights in the house. And as you probably can guess, the one on the left was using the kitchen lights, and the one on the right is using the natural lights. The natural light. So on the left, you're going to see that it's a little bit more flat and dull. And that's because lights coming at it from all different directions. The color also is not great. I don't even think I edited either of these photos at all. So this is just what it's coming directly from the phone as.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:13:43]:
And then on the right, you're going to see that there's more dimension when you have light coming from that one area. It's going to give some highlights and some low lights, and it just makes it a more interesting photo. And for me, that that photo is definitely my favorite of the two. I always recommend that people try shooting from different angles. I do this no matter what I'm photographing. I. And when I say from different angles, I'm not only talking about the sunlight. I'm also talking about where your camera is.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:14:18]:
So for this one, the sun was actually. I kind of had moved the table, so the sun was kind of behind me. The light from the window. So that's what we call back lighting. I don't use it a ton, but sometimes I just like the way it kind of is reflecting. Not reflecting, but just shining on. Like, for this, it was my lasagna skillet. This one, you can see I was.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:14:40]:
I was taking the photo from straight on and. And like I said, the sun was coming right there from the side. Same with this one, it was maybe kind of to the back and to the side. And then the. The one of the hot chocolate brownies, that photo was taken from overhead. And then the light was also coming from the side. So just move around, try different things. I always say that is the beauty of camera these days.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:15:05]:
You can delete as many photos as you want. So play around with it. I always like to take a few and then kind of scroll back and see what I like the best. And. And go ahead. So I mentioned we'd talk a little bit about backgrounds. And when I'm talking about backgrounds, I'm not only talking about what's behind it, but also what's below. Whatever you're photographing, and you can use a lot of things that you probably already have at your home.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:15:34]:
You can use your kitchen table. Ours is maybe a little bit more shiny than I'd like for photos, and I don't love the glare, so I typically try to. I typically use something else that's a little bit more matt. But you can also use large wooden cutting boards are really great. You can also use. I could probably shoot on my floor. If you have a background, no one would ever know the difference that it was that you were shooting your photos on the floor. Just play around with it, and you can typically figure out what you like the best.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:16:06]:
Other, maybe not free, but very cheap options. The photo I'll show you here in a couple slides actually was just a flooring sample. If you go to, like, the Habitat for Humanity Restore, they have lots of tile and different flooring that you can just take as many pieces as you want. So I just take a couple, and you can just piece them together. They're easier to store like that, and you can get lots of different colors, and they're super inexpensive. You can also go to, like, a Home Depot or Menards, and you can find the peel and stick tile. So if you want to create kind of that subway tile look, you can do that. It makes for a more lightweight backdrop, but also gives kind of a fun.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:16:50]:
A fun look in the back and makes it feel more like it's in the kitchen. And then you can just use regular, regular old foam board. They have white, they always have black. So kind of depending on what the look you're going for, I typically have several foam boards just on hand if I want to use those, too. And as I mentioned, matte backgrounds and props are definitely the best, just because it's going to help avoid the glare of the light whether you're using artificial lighting or whether you're using natural lighting. I always find that matte backgrounds are the worst or are the best. All right, so here is an example of the same exact thing, but I'm doing one on a dark backdrop and one on a lighter backdrop. And this also goes to show that you really just have to play around.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:17:42]:
I really thought I was gonna like the lighter backdrop, but then I switched it over to the darker one, and I liked that better because I felt like it really helped that product pop. So this product, the one on the left, that that black background, just came from a Habitat for Humanity Restore. And I want to say maybe they were like, $3, and I think I got two of two of the tiles. So those can be a really, really nice way to save space because they're small. But yeah, it can. It can get you a few different colors that you can play around with. Another fun way to kind of change up the background is that you can actually remove the background from your photo and play around with different, different backgrounds in the editing process. So in this, actually, if you have an iPhone, this is something you can really easily do on your phone.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:18:42]:
So I'm just going to show you. Hopefully this will work. So I have this product in a photo, and if you just hold down on it, it's going to kind of highlight it. And you see how it's just pulling that one piece. So it's taking out the backdrop. And you can save it like that and then put it on a different background. So, for example, on the right, I took that and I put it on a white marble countertop. Then I swapped it out for kind of a more fun shaped tile.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:19:15]:
If you want to get really crazy, you can do, like farm stuff in the background. And this is a really nice way to repurposed content. So you take this photo once and then you can use it again and again on different backdrops, and it's not going to look like you're posting the same photo all the time. Also with photos, I find it really, really important to think about textures when you're shooting, whether it's adding towels. I like to use the, like, the brownish unbleached parchment paper. I typically crumple it up a little bit just because it's going to give a little bit more texture and then just kind of use layers. So I like to stack things, stack plates. I typically don't set stuff just on one plate.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:20:05]:
It's on a stack of two or three, and maybe there's a different color on the bottom. And then you're going to see different things in the background. So I like adding texture. And you'll see that here in a couple examples. So this is my cherry cheesecake cookie. You can see, like I mentioned, the parchment paper. This is regular parchment paper, but you can see it's kind of wrinkly. And I did that on purpose, just add a little bit more texture.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:20:29]:
And then I also have layers in this one. So you can see the wooden cutting board on the bottom, the paper. And then I'm also kind of layering the cookies. And I'm not only using different textures with what the cookies are setting on, but you can also see the different textures in the cookies. So you're seeing the cookie base, you're seeing kind of the smooth cheesecakey part and then the shiny cherries. And I try to kind of play off that in the photo. So I have other shiny spots with the. With the other cookies in the background and this bowl up here.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:21:03]:
And just making sure that I'm keeping it interesting. You want the main focus to be on that center cookie, but you also want the rest of the photo to be interesting as well. And I always laugh when people say you should add garnishes, because when I used to think about garnishes, this is pretty much what I thought of. So I'm thinking of, like, crazy things where you're cutting out fruits and making weird animals out of vegetables. Now, garnishes do not have to be that, and they probably shouldn't be that. It's best and easiest just to keep it really, really simple. And adding just a little bit in one part or more parts of your photo is going to go a long way. So as you can see in this, in that meat example with the raw meat, you can see, I added just a little bit of greenery.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:21:53]:
That just makes a little bit more interesting than if it was just the black background. And then in the meatloaf, just adding a little bit of parsley on top. It's just a very simple way to add a little more interest to your photo. And like I mentioned, it could be fresh herbs. I use parsley on the meatloaf. I love using basil and Italian dishes. A lot of times, like, if I'm doing a. We do like a lemon pepper chicken, you can add slices of lemon in the back.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:22:22]:
But for this, honestly, I just used a piece of decor I had in my background or on my kitchen table. I wanted something green, and it was. I didn't have any parsley, so that's what I grabbed first. So think outside the box. Think about what you have already at your home. You don't need anything fancy. You typically can find something at home that will work. So photographing cooked meat.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:22:50]:
So whether you're cooking a steak or a burger, a pork chop, grilled chicken, there's a lot of different things to think about when you're photographing cooked meat. Because you want it to look whether you just grilled it or whether, you know, you. You cooked it 30 minutes ago and you're still trying to get the photo set up just right, there are definitely things that you can do to make it more appealing. So first of all, think about the color and the contrast. And I always Find that grill lines make things a lot more appealing. It makes it look more real, and people like that kind of the difference in color. Also, one easy tip to use when making. If you're trying to make meat look really nice and juicy, you can either use, like, cooking spray or just a little dab of vegetable oil.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:23:39]:
You don't want it to be dripping off, but if you can just brush it on enough that it's going to give it kind of that glossy appearance, it's going to look a lot more fresh than if it's just been sitting there for several minutes. Also, I like to use flavor cues. So not only flavor cues, but also think about. Think about the purpose of your photo, sir. So, for example, on the left, this was a bacon jam burger. And so, of course, I have the burger. I probably added a little bit of oil, brushed a little bit of oil on the burger and on the bacon, because I'm sure by the time I got this photo set up, it had been a while. So.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:24:18]:
And not a long time, but even a couple minutes when you're talking about meat, it can start to look a little bit dry. So I just brushed a little bit of that on there and then started thinking about, okay, what's the purpose of this photo? Well, this was. This is a photo I did for Iowa select, and they were doing something with military families, and they wanted. They wanted that patriotic look. So I added some patriotic picks. I added some. I had, like, some red and blue napkins that I added. I also added the jar of the bacon jam in the background, as well as the pretzel buns.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:24:53]:
So just kind of bringing it all together with what's in the background. Think about what's in the photo and figure out which flavor components and what props you can add that'll be a good complement to that. So editing. Editing is not always necessary, but I typically find that a few very simple edits can go a long way. And this could be. It really depends which editing app you use on your phone. Here on the right, I listed a few that are free and that are great options if you want to try to edit some photos. Whether it's cropping a photo, if you want to make it a little bit brighter or make it a little bit more, like, maybe add some more redness to meet if it doesn't look super, super fresh.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:25:48]:
And of course, you never want to go too far where it's not looking real. But just tweaking it a little bit sometimes can help a lot. So here's an example of that meat that I was. That I was messing with. I had the. The photo on the left was just. The photo right as it came out of my phone. It wasn't very square, and the color wasn't really great, and I just felt like it was a little bit too cool in terms of, like, the color temperature.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:26:15]:
So I changed it just a little bit, straightened it out and added a little bit, made it a little bit more red. And so I think it appears a little bit more fresh and appealing. Better yet, we can take this photo that came in the tray that I got at the store and all I can simply. You can just take it off that, put it on a little piece of parchment paper, add a little bit of greenery, and it just makes. It makes a lot of difference. So some simple fixes that don't take much time can definitely make a big impact. I'm going to kind of move away from food photography and go into kind of the next topic. But if you want to learn more, these are a few of my favorite people to follow.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:27:03]:
Joni Simon with the Bite shot, has a lot of awesome YouTube videos that I just. I'm so fascinated by watching. She's. She's amazing. Foodtography school. She does a lot of really light and airy photos. So if that's your cup of tea, she's really awesome to watch. And then Pretty Focused is another Instagram account, and she has a lot of good content as well.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:27:31]:
But before we move too far from photos, this is a little bit different, but we're going to talk a little bit about video, because I do feel like it's super, super important. A lot of times, like when I was making these sloppy joes just for these photos, I was taking that ground meat and I just. I tossed it in a pan and started cooking it.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:27:52]:
And.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:27:52]:
And every time I do that, I think, gosh, is this something that I should put on video? And a lot of times when people think of videoing content, it's like, oh, my gosh, that sounds like way too much work. And for me, I think I. I think about it a lot because I am a food blogger, so it's what I do all the time. But it doesn't have to be difficult. I love this. This clamp I have right now for my phone, but this is one I had for a long time. I want to say it was like 20 bucks, and you can just snap it on your countertop push record, and you really don't even have to pay attention to it. You probably want to A little bit to make sure you're getting the right things in the camera.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:28:34]:
But it doesn't have to be super time consuming. So consider that as an option. And then I use an app, a free, free app on my phone. I think when I got it, it was free. It might be, might be paid now, but it's called Inshot. There's a lot of different apps that you can use that are free or very inexpensive if you want to start editing video. So why am I so passionate about video? It's king on social media. Um, I think, I think if you are on Instagram, if you are on Pinterest, you'll see this, you'll see that it is definitely more popular, especially with the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:29:15]:
I think everyone is trying to. All different social platforms are trying to do their version of that. And so video is super important. It's also shown to increase brand awareness and sales and definitely grow social media followers. And I wanted to give you an example of this because just looking through some, some of my analytics on my social platforms is very telling of why video is important. So on the left you'll see a static pin that I had. So this is just a photo pin for my cherry cheesecake dip. And then on the right, this is a screenshot from a video pin.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:29:57]:
So these types of video pins you click through to the next slide, they're called idea pins. So I went and looked at the analytics and to see how much traction each one was getting. So the photo on the left had gotten about 370 impressions. And then the video which is on the right was getting about 600,000 impressions. You can also see the big change, the big difference in saves as well as pin clicks. And that wasn't just on this recipe. This is across the board for me. I am saying that video pins are just, they just do a lot better.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:30:41]:
And this isn't just on Pinterest. I would say this is pretty much across the board. Not only because users are really enjoy watching video, but also because these social platforms are really pushing those to the top of feeds. So different video ideas, maybe you're thinking, oh, gosh, I have nothing interesting to share. I would say that's probably not true. If you're here, if you raise livestock, if you are selling product, if you're cooking something, there's so much that people not only I think they'd be interested in seeing, but they really, really want to see where their food comes from. And so I think just showing new products Showing maybe what your family does on your operation. And most importantly of all, share your why people love feeling all the things.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:31:36]:
And so if you can share, share something from your heart, why you love it so much, why raising livestock is something that your family loves. If you can show your kids, your, your family, etc. I think that people just really love to see that. All right, so we will open up for questions in a little bit. So if you have any questions on videos, hold them just a little bit longer. I'm going to talk a little bit about sharing recipes. As I mentioned at the beginning, there's been numerous times where I'll ask someone, oh my gosh, this is so delicious. Where did you get it from? And oh, I got it off of Pinterest.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:32:18]:
Well, that's awesome. But like, where's the recipe from? And this is the analogy that I like to use. If someone asks you, where did you go on vacation? And you say, I went on an airplane. Well, that doesn't really answer the question. And that's the exact same thing when you ask someone, where did you get a recipe? If you say you got it from Pinterest, really, that's just the vehicle to where you got the recipe. So when sharing content, whether you're just. This is when we're talking about social media, so kind of going away from. If you're at a potluck, of course you want to tell them the source if you can remember it.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:32:58]:
But when we're talking about social media, it's really important that you a include the recipe name and be include a link to the actual source. I'm going to show you a couple of examples here in a sec. But on the other side of things, you do not want to include a full recipe. When you share content, you don't want to go copy and paste a recipe from the website and then put it on Facebook and say, oh my gosh, I tried this tonight and it was wonderful. You need to make sure you're giving credit to the source that it came from. Here is an example of how to share recipes properly. So if you're. And it looks a little bit different on Pinterest and, or, sorry, Facebook and Instagram.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:33:42]:
So if you're on the left here on Facebook, you see this little share button. That's really the best way to share someone's content. Some people will go to the website, for example, copy and paste this photo and then add a link to my site. I'm not totally against it. I just, I would much prefer if someone shares it directly from, from the Facebook page. And then same goes for Instagram. People sometimes will copy and paste it like, and make it look like it came from them. Whereas using the little, this little button that I had circled here, that's really the best, best route to go.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:34:27]:
So if you look at this now, of course I posted this when I was playing around, but let's say I'm sharing someone else's recipe and I have the photo. I typed out the recipe or copied and paste the recipe from their website. There are a few things that are wrong with this. So first off, it should not include the written recipe and it legally cannot include the instructions. That is just a big no no. So you definitely do not want to do that. You can take a picture of what you made and say, oh my gosh, I made this tonight. It was delicious.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:35:09]:
Here's a link to the poppy seed chicken on Dance around the Kitchen. So just, just think through it. Remember that someone is taking their time to come up with this content and you want to give them the credit that they deserve. And if you're not sure, just ask. I love when people ask, like, can I use this? Can I use your photo and recipe for this? For this newsletter article? Or the clinic here in town said, hey, we're doing some, we're sending out an email. Can I include this? Sure. I just. And I always thank them for asking because I really, really, really do appreciate it.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:35:48]:
So ask whether, whether you know the blogger or you can ask them in an Instagram message, send them an email, etc. That's always appreciated. And lastly, so we talked a lot about photos and videos and going through all this, I kind of looked back, I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, I know I say it doesn't take that much time and it really doesn't. But it's also important to remember that you're not taking a photo or taking the video for one time use. You can repurpose content so much. And I won't read through the whole list, but think of all the different ways you can just use a photo. You can use it on Facebook, Instagram, all the social platforms.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:36:33]:
You can use it in your marketing materials, newsletters. You can use it as part of a Google Web story. And same thing goes for videos. You can use it all across the board on social platforms. So I like to think also that though you're taking time to create that content, you can use it a lot going down the road. All right, I think I'll go ahead and open it up. For questions. Sydney, do you have anything come in while I've been talking?

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:37:08]:
Yes, we do. So one of the first questions we had, and this is kind of pertaining to when you were talking about lighting. Gene says it appears most of your lighting is from a side versus from the overhead. Explain why.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:37:25]:
Yeah, that's a great question. I do really, really like when it comes from the side, and I just think it gives a little bit more dimension in the photo. So if, if you're shooting from right above, you're going to get the same light coverage on top all across your photo. And it just makes. And sometimes it works. I find that most of the time it makes kind of a flat. If you can kind of imagine it, it just, it. The light is very similar all across your photo and I think that can be visually a little bit boring and plain.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:38:02]:
So if it comes from the side, you don't necessarily want shadows, but you do want some highlights and some low lights to make it a little bit more interesting. And I also find that it helps. Helps kind of highlight. Like even in that sloppy Joe photo, you're going to have kind of some shiny pieces that kind of really showcase the sauce, but it also has a little bit of shadow on the other end. So it just gives a little bit more dimension and texture.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:38:28]:
Awesome. So the next question is, when you take videos, how much do you narrate, if at all? I know some people choose to or choose not to. So what's your preference?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:38:40]:
It's definitely personal preference. Like most people, I hate hearing my sound. Like, I don't like hearing myself talk on a video. I don't narrate a ton. But I also. And this kind of makes sense if you think about the name of my blog, Dance around the Kitchen. I've always been a dancer and I love putting my food reels or videos to music. Like making it kind of go with the music.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:39:05]:
I feel like it's kind of like a dance and I really enjoy doing that. I have played a little bit, like played around a little bit with adding some voiceover in the background. Those photos didn't seem to do any better or worse than the others, so I don't enjoy it as much. And I also feel like when I just add the music, people tend to watch a little bit longer. And then because they don't have the full recipe right there, I'll explain where they can get the recipe and then hopefully they'll make it over to my website to get the full recipe. But it's totally personal preference. Some people do great with, with the voiceovers. You also, if you're going to do it in your photo or in your video and actually record yourself, that definitely takes a little bit more time up front.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:39:55]:
Whereas I take the videos and I might not even look at them for a couple of weeks. If I'm on a long road trip and my husband's driving, I might piece something together. So you have to think a little bit more ahead if you're going to do that. But either way is totally fine.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:40:09]:
Perfect. So a lot of the people we have on tonight sell their meat direct to consumers. So if they're photographing raw meat and if it has, like, wetness or moisture on it, how does that affect the lighting and how do you deal with that?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:40:26]:
Yeah, I think that's a good question. Definitely. If you're seeing a lot of glare, I would play around with, I would take a little. I would just take like a, like a tea towel or something and kind of dab the excess moisture off. You certainly don't want it to look dry. But the glare is definitely going to affect your lighting. So I would, I would just take a little bit of. A little bit of a paper towel if.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:40:52]:
If needed and see if that'll do the trick.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:40:56]:
Perfect. Another one of our questions, you were talking about sharing recipes. So if it is a recipe that they have made themselves, if it's a personal recipe, can you still not share the instructions online? I know you mentioned that there are some rules and regulations sharing instruction. So, yeah, talk about what you do. If it's your own recipe, definitely.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:41:20]:
And I would say there's. There's totally some gray area here. My rule of thumb, and actually, I was trying to look at all the rules and laws with this. The biggest thing is that you can, you can copy and paste the ingredients. It's really the instructions part that is the issue. You need to make sure that it's in your own words. So if you have a family recipe and you're typing it up and you're like, okay, I add this and I add this, that's totally fine. Because you're.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:41:52]:
You're not copying and pasting it from someone's blog post. You just don't want to be copywriting. So if you have a family favorite, type it up, that's. That's totally fine.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:42:03]:
Kind of going off of that question. If, if it's a recipe out of an old cookbook, for instance, and you can't really link to that, what would you do in that situation?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:42:14]:
I would say you could What I would do probably is take a photo of it. You could post that and then, I mean, if it's, if it's a, you know, if it comes from a church that, you know, you can tag them in it. That's definitely a huge gray area. But I think the more you, the best that you can explain where you got it from, the better.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:42:37]:
Perfect. If somebody wants to collaborate with a food photographer, what's the best way for them to do that?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:42:46]:
Yeah, I would say reach out to someone, you know that does food photography. You can always ask me. You can always ask, reach and reach out and ask me questions. There are, there are tons of bloggers that do freelance food photography and it varies in price so much from, from person to person. I do some freelance food photography, not a ton just because I try to like to also focus on my own website. But there are tons of people that do. And I would be more than happy to help connect you with someone that would be more than willing to do that.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:43:25]:
Awesome. How many times a week do you photograph your recipes?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:43:33]:
Oh, that's a good question. So like I mentioned, I do some freelance food photography. And like right now I'm helping photograph a cookbook. So that for me, it really depends on the weather. So I always look at the weather like on, on the Friday or Sunday, depending on when I plan to get groceries. Always before I get groceries, I'm going to check the weather. If the weather looks great all week, I'm going to do a lot of recipes. I'll probably be doing photography at least three days.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:44:05]:
Maybe not full days, but at least in that window of time that, that the weather looks really great outside. I'll be doing photos for my own website. I could probably get them all done in one day, like one day of the week. I usually post one or two recipes a week. So yeah, kind of depends on the weather and what I'm, what I'm shooting, whether it's stuff that's just for my website or whether it's for other brands or other projects.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:44:35]:
Perfect. So the next question is a little bit longer and if I know this is an anonymous question, so if you feel like maybe I didn't word it exactly how you meant, go ahead and ask again. But I like this question because it does kind of tie in with the social media that we talked about in the past. And also, you know, what does your consumer want to know? So this person asks, is there concern with showing a photo of beef or recipe with beef with that animal? Meaning could this, could this make People think twice about eating beef since they're obviously making that connection with a live animal. And you know, in comparison, you know, cheese that would make people think, you know, this didn't. An animal didn't give its life for this. So I guess, you know, what is your opinion on that kind of photography and recipe sharing when it talks about, you know, an animal giving its life for that?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:45:37]:
Yeah, that's. That's a really good question. I, When I worked at Iowa Pork, this is something that came up a lot, and it's. How close is too close to be talking about the animal and then talking about the product that you're using from the animal? And I think what we, what we always kind of ended up with and what, what I guess I do here on the farm too, is keep them separate. Like, I'm not going to do a post and have the pigs in one photo and the pork in the next photo. To me personally, I feel like it's a little bit. Those are too close to each other. You know, if I'm talking about the finished product, like, I want people to be focused on how awesome these French onion pork chops are.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:46:23]:
And then maybe the next day, like, if we're out on the farm and I want to talk about, you know, the hard work that goes on in the hog building, I'm going to do that. Because though I do feel like it's kind of a fine line, I also think that transparency is important. And if people want to know where their food comes from, you know, we like to show the hard work that goes into it and hopefully people will understand and make the connection of the high quality product they're getting and seeing the work that goes on behind that. And if I'm comfortable feeding it to my family after we raised it, I hope that other people will feel like, you know, if they can feed that product to their own family, I should feel good about eating it and serving it to my family, too.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:47:11]:
Yeah. So another question. I know you talked about reusing content in multiple different avenues. How much of that type of footage do you use for? Somebody referenced it as B roll footage or for different things on social media. I mean, how many times do you reuse content?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:47:34]:
I would say I mostly I do a lot of recipe reels. So I will go back and see which recipes, like which reels have done the best for me. And sometimes I will. I'll take the exact same footage and just change it up. I'll change the speed. I'll put it with a different song so it Has a totally different look and feel to it, but I'm not actually going back and recreating the recipe again. So that's how I typically re. Repurpose content.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:48:05]:
And then also I do a lot of Pinterest idea pins too. So that uses the clips of the video to kind of walk through a recipe. But you can certainly use it as B roll too. I've also used it as, you know, if I just want little bits and pieces of different foods and just kind of, if I have a reel that's showing kind of a whole plethora of what I cook, you know, I'll pick and choose from different recipes. So, yeah, you can, you can do either. Or I keep them all on my phone until I feel like my storage is way, way too high and then kind of keep my favorites and delete the rest.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:48:43]:
Perfect. Next question. I take a lot of videos of my livestock. I guess this is more of a comment, but I typically narrate as a means to focus the viewer towards certain objects. So. Yeah, that's, that's a good point. If you are narrating through your videos, it's a, it's a good way to focus your. Yeah.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:49:04]:
Audience towards something that you specifically want to point out. So that's a good point. Yeah.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:49:09]:
And I think a lot of times you can, you can, you can either narrate as you go, or you can take the videos and really think through what you want to say and then do it as a voiceover later on that might seem a little bit more put together. You can put different videos together and you're not gonna, you're not gonna have different background noises. I find that that can be really, really beneficial as well. So just another idea.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:49:33]:
Yeah. Something we've talked about a lot over the last several webinars is email lists. So one of our questions is if you're thinking about sending a video to an email list, they find that the video needs to be very short. So what are your thoughts on lengths of videos and. Yeah, how do you handle that?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:49:54]:
Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question. And I mean, the fact that you're thinking a lot about, you know, email list. I, I could go on a long rant about this, but you don't own your social media followers. You don't own, you can't decide what Google's gonna send your way. But one thing that you do have, and you'll always have is your email subscriber list. So I do find it super important to have one and so it's awesome that you're doing that. In terms of video, I don't typically put tons of video right into my emails. What I will do though is link to, like, if I'm going to show a certain recipe, I'll link to that blog post or link to the video that I have on YouTube.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:50:41]:
I just find that kind of the best way to do it. You certainly can put them in your, in your emails too. I would keep them very, very short, probably. I would do probably less than 30 seconds. That's what I find to be the best and what people like to watch these days, I think. I think with this day and age, with TikTok and Instagram Reels, people want short, they want quick. They. They want to see it and they want it to be done.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:51:08]:
And if something's not happening fast enough, they're going to scroll to the next thing. So I would keep it short and sweet.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:51:14]:
Yeah, I actually, that made me think I just saw somebody post on a marketing page the other day. If you don't catch their attention in the first, like two seconds, they're just going to scroll on past.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:51:24]:
So, yeah, yeah, definitely having that. Especially if you're trying to stop someone, like, if you're trying to stop their scroll, you need the first, like, second to be some sort of hook to keep them watching.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:51:36]:
Yeah, yeah, that's really important. Before we keep going, I am just going to post a link in the chat for you guys to fill out a survey. We would love your feedback as we're wrapping up this series, just to hear what you thought and as we move into the future, what topics you guys want to hear about. So please go ahead and fill that out. As we continue to work through the.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:52:00]:
Questions, I'm going to go ahead and go to this last page too. So if you guys can see where you can follow me, feel free to follow on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, always feel free to email me or reach out. I check my Instagram DMS a lot, so that's probably the best way to get a hold of me. But yeah, what other questions are there?

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:52:22]:
Yeah, so kind of going off that social media, how do you address negative or controversial comments on your channels?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:52:32]:
Yeah, they used to get me really fired up. I think I'm just a very competitive person in nature. So if someone was not liking what I was doing, I think I just took it really personal. I try to remind myself, people, people aren't gonna like everything you do. There are so many different people out here in this world. It really depends if. When I was working at Iowa Pork, if someone was negative and their comment almost seemed like they didn't really understand something on the farm, I would try to explain it to them. I always kind of think about this continuum of, you know, people who, they're farmers, they love the farm, and then there's these people on the other side that are totally anti, you know, commercial agriculture.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:53:20]:
And you really kind of want to focus on this kind of the middle ground. The people that, you know, maybe they're not sure, they totally love, you know, technology and barns and all this different kind of thing. Um, but there I. We call them the movable movable middle. And if you can reach them and kind of pull them your way and help show what good things agriculture is doing, that's awesome. So if people are asking questions in a very. They just don't quite understand, I think it's good to. To address that.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:53:57]:
If people are just going to be, you know, well, first of all, if there's. If there's lots of bad words, bad language in it, I'm going to go ahead and block them just because they don't mean well. They could just be a bot anyways, so I'm just going to delete it. So focus on that movable middle and make sure you're responding to the people who are commenting positive and ignore. Ignore the haters.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:54:23]:
Yeah, I know. You did talk about kind of the accents that you like to add into photos and the greenery. Do you have a favorite type of greenery or something you like to add into your photos?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:54:38]:
Yeah, I. I mean, I have kind of a whole cupboard now of props, so I kind of just go through and figure out what I think will look best with the shot. But I'm always first thinking about the ingredients that are in. In the recipe. So, for example, like on this slide, I have my raspberry cake. And of course I'm going to just. I'm going to use a lot of that bright red raspberry color because they're beautiful and they also help show the flavors of the recipe. So first off, always thinking about the flavors of what you're using and then making sure you have lots of texture.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:55:11]:
So in the back of that photo, you can't really tell, but there's. There's probably a towel back there. Something that's just. So it's not just plain in the background. It's okay to have some white space, but I do like to have a lot of different textures in there too. When it comes to Greenery. I. I typically do have parsley in the fridge to make it last really long.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:55:33]:
If you just take it out of kind of that bag you get at the grocery store, put it in a cup of water, and just keep it in the fridge like that. So imagine you get some flowers from the store. You're going to put it in a vase of water, do the same thing. Just keep it in the fridge and take the parsley you need as you go. You can do that with other herbs as well, like any Italian herbs. Basil, oregano is going to look really nice on pasta and that kind of thing. But parsley is always just a really good staple.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:56:06]:
Yeah, that's awesome to think about and a good way to reuse things so well. We don't have any other questions in the Q and A, but if. If anybody has something on their mind and wants to ask, go ahead and put that in the Q and A before we wrap up for the evening. Oh, here's one. What about natural weeds and flowers from the ranch as props?

Kelsey Byrnes [00:56:32]:
Yeah, I think that's a great. That's if you have access to that and you totally can. I think sometimes, you know, a lot of times. So I was on. I was on a Food Network show, and a lot of times when I was watching these shows leading up to the one that I was on, you know, a lot of the judges would be really negative if anybody put anything on the plate that was inedible. And I do agree sometimes to an extent, maybe it wouldn't look best, like, necessarily on the plate if it's not something you can eat. Um, however, these days, there are so many different microgreens and edible flowers and. And whatever.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:57:13]:
So I think people are a little bit more open to other things on their food, but if you want them in the background or kind of in the. Just anywhere else in your photo, I think it's a great option and a great way to add some color. And I. I think if you could tell people that, you know, that's where they came from. I mean, I think that's super cool.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:57:33]:
Awesome.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:57:34]:
I just want to chime in for a second here. Sorry, Sydney, Katie from Chop Local here. Kelsey, you mentioned earlier some of the apps that you use to edit your photos, and I just wanted to say I absolutely love snapseed for editing farm photos as well. And so that's something that I would definitely suggest that people check out. It's a free app, and there are a couple of settings. Specifically, I'll probably have to write a. I'll probably have to put this in our email newsletter for chop local. Because there's a couple of tools that I use in snapseed to edit my farm photos that I think just really make them absolutely gorgeous, and I would love to share that with everybody so that they can use that as well.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:58:18]:
Yeah. And one thing that I use on snapseed a lot, too, is I love that you can take the brush and put it over just specific areas of your photo. So if it's not necessarily the whole thing that's really dark, there's just like one section that's dark or one that you really want the color to pop, you can. You can kind of pick and choose where that is. So that's. Yeah. Yeah. I do really love snapseed.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:58:40]:
Yeah. And if this sounds overwhelming to you, if you're watching and you're like, I don't even know where to start with editing photos. A lot of these apps have, like, an automatic editor. Like, you press the button and it'll do something to your picture. Press it, see if you think it looks better and if it does, go with it. If it doesn't, undo it. Try a different button. I mean, that's how you just really get a feel for what is going to look the best.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:59:04]:
So.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:59:08]:
For sure.

Katie - ChopLocal [00:59:09]:
Yeah.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:59:09]:
I think a lot of it is just playing around and finding what you like. And honestly, you know, Kelsey covered this, but it doesn't have to be complicated. So, yeah, I really like that advice.

Kelsey Byrnes [00:59:22]:
I think people get so overwhelmed with just the thought of having to do or thinking that they need to do photos and video, but you just have to start. That's exactly how I was when I started my blog. I'm like, I don't even like these photos. But you have to start somewhere and just improve a little bit each way, and eventually you'll come up with something you like and you'll start to understand your style, and it won't take you long at all once you kind of get the hang of it.

Sydney - ChopLocal [00:59:53]:
Yeah, I think that's great. Well, with that, I don't see any other questions in our Q and A, but if you guys have any questions, feel free to reach out and we can definitely get you connected with Kelsey and be sure to follow her on all of her social media channels. But thank you so much, Kelsey, for all of your expertise tonight. I know I got a lot out of this, so hopefully our. Our viewers did as well.

Kelsey Byrnes [01:00:19]:
Well, thanks for having me, and thank you, everyone, for tuning in.