Writing on this blog after 4 years. I know I have neglected this blog so much. But I do keep revisiting and rereading my old posts especially the ones where I have cataloged my food photography surface.
So, I thought I will do another post talking about my latest wooden surface for food photography. So much has changed in last 4-5 years. I shifted to a new house, my daughter is already 7 years old and trying to incorporate more portraits of her in my photography.
But for this post I will focus on wooden surface, my previous post here – https://ijuhi.wordpress.com/2020/08/29/how-to-create-wooden-background-for-food-photography/
I wanted to update that I have created many more wooden surface, most of the time curating and painting them myself. Over last 3 years when I shifted to my new house, It also gave me an opportunity to incorporate wooden textures in my interiors. More on that in another post. This also meant I had a number of left over pieces of teak and pine which I repurposed as wooden surface for food photography. As usual I painted these and distressed look is always my favourtie.
- Pinewood Planks
This set of 3 pine wood planks was left over from a new table my carpenter created. I had never used pinewood earlier, but my carpenter made me aware of various shops which now sell repurposed pinewood of all thickness and size which are mainly discarded boxes from large industrial equipment shipping and transportation container. It was the best place for me and I accompained my carpenter to one of these shops to hand select these repurposed planks which I have extensively used in my home decor, including making surface for TV console, entry way console, a custom table to go over washing machine and more. I will share these in another post. And these planks were so cheap, usually the thicker boards being more expensive. But this served me perfectly where I bought around 3 planks around 3 feet by 1 feet each and these didn’t have to be thick. Infact thinner pieces serves perfectly well for photography surface, so convinent to store them as well. I have learned my lesson, when I earlier used to buy thicker teak wood blocks and though so beautiful to photograph It used to take so much space.
This has quickly become my favourite surface. I stained these planks with walnut stain and few dry brush strokes.
This is the other side of the plank, though I have painted it vibrant blue, it is currently not to my liking and I might change the color soon or just sand it away to give it a distressed look.
Some more examples of this surface, it is just so lovely and so proud to have repurposed and painted these myself.
2. White Board
Well this one is not repurposed by me, but I kind of bought it online. I always am looking at distressed wooden surface on Amazon and if they are reasonable priced I do buy them. Ok this was the only such online purchase but really worth it. I slightly painted over to give it a vibrant white color and the other side was painted with blue.
I am not really sure, what wood this is, but the narrow pattern or wooden grain really adds a lot of character to the photos.
White side of the board
Blue side of the board
More pics on this surface
3. Small Pinewood planks
Again these set of slightly thicker planks were left over from my house interior work. I asked the carpenter not to plane them out but keep the rough texture intact. These are very small may be roughly 2 by 2.5 feet combined, so I can’t do large food setups. I painted both sides initially black and them overlayed one side with very minimal blue color, infact less is more, trying to leave some black peeking inbetween. When I first photographed on these I was like wow this gives such a nice rustic look. I have done many small setups on the blue side and maybe few on black side, which I still think needs more work.
The blue side
(note how the nail marks, which I had to remove gives it so much character. )
The black side
more examples on this
Not only this, I even use just 2 planks to create a smaller setup on another texture, to use it like a small board
4. Old Cot with Green flaky paint
These planked wood has a history behind it. It may look like it is a printed texture but these are actual distressed wood. It used to be a wooden cot and my mom left this cot on the terrace and over just couple of years out in rain and sun it started to disintegrate and the cot broke eventually. My mom started using it for fire (which infact is another story and I asked her not to burn painted wood which can be toxic). I was able to salvage few pieces, each plank is around 10 cm wide and I packed these and brought it to Bangalore. You can image the plight of baggage handlers in checked in bags. They must be wondering why these old rotting wooden pieces, though I had packed it well.
Now the other side was same color but slightly rougher in texture and I painted 4 out of 8 planks on the other side in my favourite blue and these other side has become more photogenic.
Green distressed side
at the corner you can see one part has also chipped off.
Other side with rougher texture
Love the texture on how the plank patch was removed and it didn’t get painted giving it a beautiful texture.
Blue painted side
I did a dry brush paint to still reveal some of the green on half of the planks
some sessions on this distressed wood
5. Yellow and Red Planks
At times I get inspired by bold colours as my background and I chose to paint these small plank pieces again pine wood into yellow and red paints. And also glossy, though I sanded these down. They give such a beautiful vibrant touch to pics especially festive ones. These are recent textures and I am looking forward to using these during Diwali
Yellow side
Red Side
some sessions on these lovely yellow and red planks
6. And last but not the least small wooden boards
I have collected several small boards most of these repurposed and they serve so well to use as additional texture to break out the picture and add a touch of wooden chopping board style to photography.
This blue one is my favourite, which was actually a seat where I removed its small legs and use it as a chopping board to add interest into the shot.
The other side is painted red
And one of the pieces which was just lying around at my home town, and I painted these blue partly.
iJuhi Photography 