WP Engine is our current host. It’s crazy fast, specicially created for wordpress, and takes care of all the heavy lifting. It’s more expensive than other hosts, but we saw it well worth it considering the amount of time it saves us, much less the peace of mind. Read more about how to choose a website host.
Bluehost is another great hosting option. I’d recommend them if you don’t expect to grow your site or are ok with swtiching providers later. (If you want to grow your site, go with dreamhost).
For it’s easy of use, quick setup, and all around reliability, dreamhost is a preferred hosting provider. They have great support and have an excellent setup for operating a simple wordpress site.
Genesis has become my favorite framework and theme. Genesis is the combination of everything you want in a wordpress website – SEO optimization, variety of layout choices, ability to edit design customizations, and a great support network.
Thesis used to be the standard go-to theme. However, it’s quickly losing steam after a botched launch and silent support. Although it still has a lot of functionality, it’s not longer my go-to choice.
Elegant Themes provide some of the most ascetically pleasing sites avialable. Their subscription plan also gives you the flexibility to try out a number of different options. Using one of their themes will get your site setup in a matter of minutes.
Aweber is one of the best email newsletter/broadcast services I’ve ever used. It’s not inexpensive ($19/month), but email lists are incredibility valuable and building one for your site can be a huge asset. I use aweber on all my sites.
Using feedburner (owned by google) to create an rss feed is a fairly standard practice. However, they also allow you to create a free email list. It’s extremely limited and often fraught with problems, but it might be a way to start out on the cheap.
E-junkie is a fast way to start selling things through your site. If you have an ebook or pdf you’d like to sell, you can upload it to their stie and start selling it. They also allow you to collect commissions selling products uploaded by others. Even if you don’t intended to sell original content, you make money selling other resources.
Buying photoshop, illustrator, and dreamweaver as part of an adobe package can cost upwards of $1,500. However, they have a great service (creative cloud) whereby you can pay a monthly rate. If you qualify as a student, it’s only $29.99/month. Otherwise it’s $49.99/month. Either way, it’s a great deal (and you’ll always have the latest products!)
The d600 is our latest camera. We use this camera for almost all of our food photography. The major difference between it and the d90 is that it is a full-frame camera. This results in higher color quality and takes better photographs in certain settings. Also, it’s been a huge asset as we explore videography.
The d90 is an amazing camera and was our first digital slr. This is a great and (relatively) affordable to upgrade your equipment to a dslr.
Plate to pixel is one of the most succinct books on taking better food photography. It’s been a great resource and we still reference it.
