Last post for 365 days of photography - 2014

 This is my last post for the 365 days challenge for 2014. What a year, It seems like yesterday when I committed to taking one picture a day for the rest of the year. I was skeptical if I would be able to keep up and if the images will be good enough to share. I am still not sure about the later, but I surely enjoyed the challenge. Frankly I did not expect much traffic, it was  meant to be a personal project that I was documenting on the blog. I was surprised by the attention the posts generated. The learning curve was phenomenal. More than documenting an exposure, I wanted to create something artistic.  Photography for me is not a representation of how an exposure is documented ‘as-is’ in real time, to me it is my interpretation of the play of light and shadows. I learnt a lot and I really think it helped me understand photography better, not in terms of what is the right exposure for a shot, but what is the right creative exposure that will help me narrate my story.

I saw many miles stones in terms of photography. The biggest for me was to launch my portfolio site. I was not sure I was ready for it, but finally it is up and am so glad. Thanks for the overwhelming love and affection. Your inputs fuels me to go ahead and better my art, it sounds so cliche, I really don’t know how else to express my gratitude and let you know how I feel - thanks guys!  I did  a few paid gigs this year and absolutely enjoyed working on them.

As far as the 365 days challenge, I am going to alter that a bit, it’s not going to be 365 -some days it did wipe me out. I am planning to do an image a week.  It’s going to be “52 days of creative exposure”.  I will try and share some photography tutorials, anything specific please leave me a comment, message or  email.

Even though I am still planning to do an abridged version of the photography challenge, I have mixed feelings, going to miss 365. Do you guys want to join me?? leave a comment and we are in it together.

I do hope I am able to post one last recipe post for 2014, but if not. Wishing you all a wonderful 2015 and hope the year rocks for you. Thanks again for the support, encouragement and last but not the least the love and affection.

If you want to join me in “ 52 days of creative exposure” join my FB group, we have a lot of people who signed up already. It is going to be fun.

365 days of photography : October, 2014 : Food Photography Resources.

Food Photography tutorials email me - turmeric53@gmail.com

1- How to capture Steam in food photography
2- How to capture white objects on white.
3- Composition theory for food photography
4- How to shoot moody and intense images
5- Painting props for food photography
6- Personalized tutorials.

This month I have done a collection of color and b&w. Colors of fall, be it the vibrant leaves or the painted skies….fall is the most scenic season of all. It last for a very short time but it is  spectacular. The B&W images are from a Facebook challenge, we had to post five black and white images for five days. So, shared it on 365 as well. 

I often get asked about sources to learn food photography, photography is a two fold learning process.

Visual learning, where you 'study' images that inspire you. Just looking at them will do little or nothing, you need to ask some questions. 

1- why does this image catch my attention,  what do I like in it, what emotions does it evoke.

2- what's the light source, read the shadows

3-what's the color pallet, how does the prop support the colors and mood

4- read the angle, ponder why it was picked

5- study the frame

Once you form a habit of looking at the image and asking some basic questions, you will start doing this subconsciously.

How does studying an image help you ? You will know why an image is appealing, how the angle, frame and colors add to the final story. Try it.

How do you find  food images, go to Pinterest and explore. I have created a lot of boards on Pinterest to help me learn. You guys are free to repin. I spend a lot of time on Pinterest and have learnt a lot there, 

Reading/studying : Reading about photography, understanding the technical aspect. Understand all the settings of your camera, don't be afraid to use manual setting. Read the manual. Read about photography in general, these are a few sites that taught me a lot. Since am not as smart as a lot of you, I need to write things down, so I have a diary where I write down everything I learn about photography…. 

Learn food photography - Neel : one of the best resources online for food photography. There is soo much to learn there, Neel has done a lot of work and trust me it’s a huge database of knowledge. Do not forget to subscribe to his podcast. Neel has helped me a lot to learn, I owe a lot to him. 

Drizzle and Drip : 10 tips for food photography and styling

Gourmet in the kitchen : Moody tutorial 

National Geographic : Tips  

Cookie + Kate : Food photography for bloggers

Fstoppers : tons of tutorials

MDR photography classes : How to take photographs in a restaurant 

Dessert for Breakfast : How to shoot a cake

Great book to haven your book shelf : HELENE DUJARDIN - PLATE TO PIXEL

I also subscribe to lots of  food photography magazines. Donna Hay being my favorite. Photography weekly is a good magazine to keep you unto date. 

If you ask me that is a lot of resources, a lot of reading and join creative live, lots of classes for free. The ones that I recommend to buy, I have them and often go back to it.  

Andrew Scrivani 

Penny De Los Santo 

I do have other classes from Andrew on Craftsy. So That is another place to check out. Always great stuff on sale. 

The most important of them all, your camera manual. That’s your photography Bible. So these were some study material, some are free and some at a reasonable price. I hope this helps. 

365 days of photography - September 2014

 Thank you for the overwhelming response for my moody tutorial,  big thanks for all the comments, emails and messages on Facebook. I loved creating the post, will try and do more, let me know if you want something specific.

This is going to be my favorite post from 365 days of photography, am going to be cheating a bit here. Everything is fair in love and photography:))I did take much more than 30 images for the month ( way more), but as I was getting all the images together, I realized that most of them are produce, so I got all excited and thought of doing something a bit different. Doing a 30 image post on just produce and not all the images are taken from september, some are really old, but I thought it would be a nice thing to have them all in one post, my favorite ones :)   I can do a whole 30 day post on tomatoes, but I will spare you guys :) a lot of moody shots for you to gawk. I normally don’t  like to do two photography related post one after the other, but this time made an exception. I had so many moody shots,  could not wait another week to share.

Previous 365 days posts…..

January

February (1)

February (2)

March (1)

March (2) 

April 

May

June 

July

August

I am already thinking 2015, I may not do a 365 for 2015 but will definitely do one photograph in a week, calling it a 52 weeks challenge. What do you guys think ? 

365 Days of photography - August, 2014

Finally got to do the the 365 day post for the month of August. August was one busy month for me. I had a few photography assignments that were due plus we had a hectic social calendar, one thing or the other every weekend. Not that am complaining, I really enjoyed it, but am limited by time. One thing I cannot compromise on is my sleep, I need my seven hours, else am one grumpy soul. :)

I can’t believe that summer is officially over, at least in this part of the world. Am going to miss my summer routine so much, long walks, watering my garden, going out to coffee with friends, farmers markets, ohh the list is endless. This year we had an extremely short summer, before I blinked it’s gone. This post is really my tribute to summer. I have been planing forever to carry a camera to farmer’s market and every week I tell myself the next…..well the rate at which the temperatures are dropping I do not think there will be any next. I really hope to get a few shot at least, maybe next week. For now it’s mostly roses. I think am short by a few photographs this month, I promise to make it up in the next month. Thanks guys for all the support and appreciation for my work, that really keeps me going. I have not been able to do photography tips, but I have and will try and respond to any queries, like I always do on FB or via email. Thanks again! 

January

February (1)

February (2)

March (1)

March (2) 

April 

May

June 

July

365 Days of photography - July, 2014

I am surprised at myself, seriously! If you walk into my house you will see neutral colors,  you walk into my closet you will see color but nothing that will jump at you. You may not see me in a pair of red pants with a turquoise handbag and shoes ( that could be a great combination, now that I think of it, why not). I am beginning to get compliments on my photography for uniques color pairings, great color sense.  Not my forte really, I am very conventional as far as colors are concerned, try to stay in the norm ( read boring). Photography has opened my eyes to the creative world of colors. Am really getting tempted to buy a pair of turquoise shoes and red hot pants now…profile picture coming soon ;)

Here is the update on my 365 day photo challenge for the month of July, have been wanting to post this for a week. I really don’t see any exceptionally artistic color pairings, but am ready for some color drama in my photography. I am just loving this 365 days of challenge. 

here you go…..do leave me a comment, would love to know what you guys think. 

 Work from previous months : 

January

February (1)

February (2)

March (1)

March (2) 

April 

May

June

365 days of Photography - June, 2014

Am back with 365 days of photography, for the month of June. It has been an exceptional month in terms of photography, I seriously did not know which images to include, had so many. When I started out the challenge, I was really not sure if I could make it thru the year. With each passing month I am getting more and more immersed into photography. A lot of people believe, photography is all about owning a good camera and tons of post processing - it’s far from it. It’s like telling a baker - your cakes are amazing, you must have a great oven. Tools can only help you improve your skills, but good ingredients necessarily don’t make great art. 

It’s hilarious how sometimes I get the reaction, “ So you take pictures of your food and post it, that’s all” Well, my usual response, “yes, that is all” - well, not really. Photography is an art form. It’s an expression, an extension, an emotion - it’s poetry with colors and light not words - just like a painting….

 Previous month’s work 

January

February (1)

February (2)

March (1)

March (2) 

April 

May

365 days of photography - May, 2014

January

February (1)

February (2)

March (1)

March (2) 

April 

May was really busy and even thou I had my hands full, I did shoot everyday and sometimes multiple times a day…that’s the reason not all images in this album is exactly same as that posted on Facebook. I tried to make a diptych using a color scheme. Am constantly learning my color wheel from nature and I am often surprised as to how much am influenced by it. Here is my Fb album . Am totally in love with all the colors and textures around me, I know am not able to do justice to what I see, but am getting there, loving the journey. I would love to call this set of images, spring thru my lens. 

I have gotten some queries about photography, am going to resume my tutorial (my 2 cents, am no expert) in fall. Thanks for some lovely messages on FB and emails about my photography, am humbled, if you need my help or input please don’t hesitate to pm me. It’s a beautiful journey and there is nothing like having like minded people with you, would love to hear your critique and thoughts on this post. 

365 days of photography - April 2014

I can't imagine my last update for the 365 day post was March. Even though I have been really enjoying the process of capturing one photograph (or more) a day, I have been behind in posting it on the blog. I have been quite regular on FB- click here to view entire album. Since I had not posted for almost a month and a half, I decided to post April photographs in one post as a diptych. In order to make sense in pairing them, I shuffled the images, so they are really not in order, even thou they were all shot sometime in April.  I should not sweat the small stuff, am not going to label them date wise.  I really enjoyed creating a diptych, some of them are transformed into a beautiful visual story. Since this is such a picture heavy post, am not going to be doing a tutorial today. Let me catch up on the back log and will resume the tutorials shortly. Thanks guys! Appreciate all the comments and like on the album on Facebook. 

“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.” 
Henri Cartier-Bresson

January

February (1)

February (2)

March (1)

March (2) 

Clink link above for Photographs from previous months and tutorials. Before I forget, I have got many questions about the cilantro leaf on the yellow surface, I created the surface, it's watercolor paper and some watercolor paints. Mustard color, with some auburn n brown on the edges and just blend. 

“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.” 

Diane Arbus

How to use manual mode - 2

 
Food Photography tutorials email me - turmeric53@gmail.com
 
1- How to capture Steam in food photography
2- How to capture white objects on white.
3- Composition theory for food photography
4- How to shoot moody and intense images
5- Painting props for food photography
6- Personalized tutorials.

Shutter Speed  and  ISO 

I am way behind on posting an update on my 365 days challenge. I just have a lot  on my plate, most of my project are going on track but managing a time line for each is seriously not my forte. It’s funny how everyone works so differently, Despite having all the gadgets, I still write down all my to-dos for the week and track all my dead lines in my diary. Hubs just does not get my style of working, he insist that putting then down on an electronic format will reduce the time I spend on planning. I feel so insecure to not have it on paper. It’s working ! So, that’s all there is to it. ;) This is a post from some scribbles from my diary.

 We were talking about the basics of photography and decoding the manual setting on your camera in our pervious 365 days post.  To understand that we had to brush up or learn in some case the basics of all that there is to use the manual settings of our camera, so we can manipulate and use it to our advantage.

A quick re-cap…. there are 4 basic controls, that you need to know.

Aperture

ShutterSpeed 

ISO

White Balance

Aperture : is the size of opening of the lens. That determines the amount of light that gets into the sensor…in other words the opening is more, more  light. We went in detail about aperture and DOF. Click here to read that. 

Moving on …..

Shutter Speed 

Shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter is open.

Shutter speed is calculated in fraction of seconds 1/4S, 1/30S, 1/1000S the bigger the denominator the faster it is. If the shutter is open for a longer amount of time you will get more light, however if it is open for less time you get less light. In other words, the faster the shutter: lesser the light. The slower the shutter: more light. BUT, the lower the shutter speed the more the hand shake is visible (image has a blur/shake).  For me anything below 1/60S, I need a tripod. 

Get your camera. Put it on manual setting. Keep the Aperture to F/4.0 and play with the shutter. 

Together with shutter speed (amount of time the shutter is open for light to come in)and aperture ( opening of the lens to allow the light to come in) you can really control the play of light.  Remember different combinations can create similar light but different mood, as we spoke about Depth of Field in our last post. 

 Shutter is a great tool to play around in action photography. Car racing, bikes, race tracks etc  However in food photography, if you want a image of maple syrup being poured on a stack of pan cakes it’s a great tool to use. Or if you want to capture water flowing over fresh fruits. Shutter speed can create quite the magic. At higher shutter speed you can almost freeze the movement of the maple syrup or water. On lower speed it can create a soft look. I think I can explain better with images. 

Here you go…

See the water almost froze in action at 1/1000Second whereas in 1/10 Sec it shows movement. This is perhaps the only application of shutter I can think of in food photography. However, shutter does play an important role in managing light. 

ISO 

In digital photography ISO is the sensitivity of the image sensor. In a dark room, with very little light pumping up the ISO may be a good strategy to get some good light in to image. 

Lower ISO : Less sensitive to light : finer the grains

Higher ISO: More sensitive to light : grainy and noisier the image

If you want a razor sharp image, 100 ISO is the way to go. I have used a very high ISO on the image on the right, to show the graininess. You may never have to go that high, but sometimes ISO can be used to create an artistic impression. 

Now, that leaves us with WB (white balance) am going to work on that in my next post of 365. I have also got requests to do post on behind the scenes, specially the dark and moody photographs. Will try and put it together as soon as I can . 

Now for some images from March 

March16, 2014 - look at the DOF 

March17, 2014 

March18, 2014 the edge of the plate almost blends to the background, playing with aperture to create the shallow DOF.

365 days of photography: March (part1) , 2014 - How to capture steam in natural light.

In January some of my friends and me started a photography challenge,  to shoot one image a day.  It’s been a very rewarding experience! There are always days when  I am out of creative juice and I run a blank…I skip and shoot the next day or the next. Creativity cannot be forced and I am never hard on myself ( being the lazy procrastinator I am ;)), that does not mean I do not push myself, I am my worst critic. 

If you want to view images from previous months, click on the links below. 

January 

Feburary 1 

February 2

March1, 2014 : one of my favorite steam swirls 

In the course of my journey of 365 days of photography, a few of my friends asked me to do some posts on food photography. I frankly had no idea what to write,  I am quite a novice in this field. After a lot of push and some introspection, I finally took the plunge in my last post. Thanks for helping me with these posts, thanks for all the queries and inputs. 

Before I move on to Shutter, ISO and White Balance. I have been asked consistently time and again how do you capture steam? There is really no magic or special technique, a few things help and most often it is one in 20 to 30 images that has the perfect steam. Steam not only adds a movement to the image it makes it warm and welcoming. It’s so magical. Some of the things that help me while shooting steam.

- Very hot beverage ( reheated several times during the course of the shoot ) 

- Dark background, try to keep it plain

- Backlight is the best to capture steam, side light does wonders too. A combination of both can be perfect. (You can see in the set up below a back and a side window).

- Keeps the colors a warm tone.

- If you have a window keep it open a whee bit to have a small draft of cold air. I have kept the window very slightly open ( cold outside) to create a mild draft of air and to help condensation. 

I keep the set completely ready, camera on with the desired aperture and shutter settings. Bring the hot beverage and shoot. You have to be faster than the steam and anticipate the shapes it might form and hit the shutter right before you feel a whip of beautiful stem will be generated. It takes a bit of practice and it is a bit like modern art, you never know what you will capture and if you are patient you will be generously rewarded. 

March2, 2014 fresh pears on a muted dull surface

I know I was planning to do a post today on shutter, ISO and WB… I think it will be too much for one post. I think I should talk about it in my next post. Let me know if you have any other queries or inputs will be happy to address it and if it is beyond my scope, I can always ask one of my food photographer friends to do a write up for me. 

Am really looking forward to some green post (read spring) and can’t wait to get out there and capture it…

March 3, 2014 more pears

March4, 2014 Somehow an apple does not look as appealing as a pear.

March5, 2014 - the bitter cold continues 

March6, 2014 my experiment with ISO and low light

March7, 2014 more steaming chai