Five and a half years ago, I did a photographic inventory of my pantry, and committed to using up the items by using them every meal I made I home. Even  though I did not give myself a time limit, I can still now say that I failed.

Even though it was a failure, I am going to try the same thing again! Though this time with a few improvements:

1. Give myself a year to use (if not use up) each item
2. Make a list of everything and check off items as I use them
3. Commit to planning at least four meals a month, and use the pantry items as inspiration
4. Take a photo of each single item, because that seemed like it might be somehow inspiring

I have a bunch of photo editing and list making to do before I can publish the inventory, but here is my photographing set-up to pique your interest in the meantime:

Below are my test photos, as I tried out lighting set-ups and white balances. I settled on using the in-camera flash, my stove overhead light on the blanket, and the camera’s auto white balance. Looking at these now, I feel like auto white balance was maybe a mistake.