Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Inspiration: Prop Room

Did you all catch Martha Stewart's post on her prop room?

Don't know about you but my kitchen has been taken over more and more by stacks of individual pieces of china plates, ceramic bowls, and sterling serving spoons. But this room of MS, sigh.

By Elise from Simply Recipes

7 comments:

Dawn0fTime said...

Funny you should mention that. I just wrote myself a not today to keep an eye open for "odd plates" at discount stores and yard sales. I'm getting tired of plating all my food up on the same dishes all the time! =)

Ed Charles said...

It was very impressive. I never imagined it could be that big and have that much stuff. She must have a team out there scouting in antique shops. I must admit at home I go from the antique silver and porcelain to the modern minimalist, dishwasher safe stuff. I think Martha may have inspired me to dig out several boxes of collected bits and pieces from the attic and find some space for them downstairs.

Sam said...

I think I am prone to go in the other direction - keeping it real - just use white china, or my regular stuff, and let the food do the talking. That's my excuse anyway. I'm not really into food styling. I've tried it from time to time but I really don't enjoy it much. I'm crap at it too which is probably more to the point. I take 90% of my food pics on the end of my wooden table on the plate I am going to eat it from 30 seconds later. The pics are never as twee as Martha's but I think they are ok. Needless to say - that is a fascinating link anyway. Thanks for posting it, Elise.

Kalyn Denny said...

I have a collection of what my friends call "blog dishes" that fill up a small bookcase, but Martha's collection is unbelievable! Sam, I am hopeless when it comes to food styling, I have no imagination when it comes to that. I just try to choose a plate or dish that shows off the food. My stuff is mostly from the secondhand store or places like TJ Maxx, but it's fun keeping an eye out for new additions.

Alanna Kellogg said...

My friend Linda who's a stylist has wooden shelves that take up half of a large basement filled with nothing but styling items. She's very organized. A local food photographer has a similar set up the size of a warehouse, everything sorted by type, color, size, etc. Amazing. I keep a cupboard of blog dishes, all stacked up, and a drawer of placemats, etc. I miss eating off my favorite black dishes - who knew that food color 'pops' on black in person but not in photographs?!

Rachael Narins said...

To me, envy of that room is a tragic comment on consumerism. Sigh.

Hopefully, some day, Omniliving will have a garage sale. With all the profits going to a good cause. Sigh.

Andrea said...

Wow. Amazing, but I guess that's what you need when running a multi-million dollar business.

I'm hopeless with food styling, so I just do my best to make the food look edible on our regular plates that we eat on every day. I have some pieces of pottery that I picked up in my travels that get used in my photos on a regular basis, and I have a few basic plates that I'll use when I want a plain background.

I'm trying to keep my dishes from spilling over into other rooms, unlike my cookbooks which are in the kitchen, the study, and the basement... :-)