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Food Photography – Learning Through Experience 2

After a gap of few months , we are back with another Food Photography post. Today our guest  is sharing with us an elaborated post with some editing functions. And I am sure it will be a lot of help to many. Not getting into more details lets welcome Kamalika C from the blog: http://silencesings.blogspot.in/
Food Photography is totally a different ball game. It is a way away from clicking the landscapes or the portraits. And I am totally a learner in this field. When Huma invited me to write a guest post on Food Photography I told her I would not be able to write any technical information (i.e. Aperture, ISO etc ) about Food Photography but my experience through which I have learnt some and have come to a decent point to click near to good Food Photographs. So here I will share the journey how I learn what I learn with you all.

My dad was a passionate photographer at his young age and won many prizes. But now he hardly touches his camera due to his busy work profile. So that I should not touch his professional Canon camera, he gifted me a Yashica Point Shoot Camera to me when I was just 5. And from then I have a keen interest to capture everything around me. I was totally not aware how much it is difficult to get an impressive click unless and until you open your mind, your eyes to capture the right moment, mood from a particular angle. These all play like a magic wand if you can expertise your click as a professional. But among all the most important part is to know the Light and click it from the right angle. After my marriage also I was too satisfied with the Point shoot one that my hubby had. My Yashica one was then passed to my sis. I was shifted to US and started clicking everything all around. And in my mind I started dreaming to own a DSLR. Ah, the dream did come true when my daughter was born and my hubby gifted me a DSLR one. Still life, landscapes and portraits are then my forte to shoot. I never thought that I would try my hand in Food Photography. That began when I started blogging and got inspired by so many creative talented food photographers around.

From my experience I learnt that Food Photography mainly depends on 5 things:
  1. The presentation.
  1. Creating the Mood around the Food served.
  1. Capturing the Food from the right angle.
  1. The Light.
  1. Editing. 
I am using Canon Rebel XT and for Food Photography I use 50mm/1.8ft Lens. I always click on the Program mode and my ISO is set at 1600. Clicking day time everyone says its easy. But I always cook at night and I am bound to have all my clicks at night time only. So you will find most of my pictures are click at night. OK now let us move through the points and let’s start  our discussions.

1.   The Presentation:

When to present your dish the first thing is the container you are serving and the props around the dish. SO for Food Photography, to present a dish we set a back ground and the props to create the perfect mood for what is served.


2. Creating the Mood around the Food served:
Creating the Mood is another important part of Food Photography. If you are serving a dessert then put some props around it related to the dessert. The colour combination that goes well with dish etc.

3. Capturing the Food from the right angle and the light:
I will discuss these two points together. Always keep on clicking from different angles and would come to know which one is best for the shot. Following are some picture to get a better conception on it.


Day time Clicks:

Night Time Clicks:


Both pictures  are captured same way like the 4th picture. Pls See the note on the picture.

4. Editing:
After clicking Editing is sometimes get very important. I use the Picasa to edit my photographs. Though I believe it is best to click the right moment so that we don’t have to edit, sometimes it gets needed to balance the light and the shadow to make the picture up to the mark.

See the difference after editing.

Please check the red circles which are very helpful through which I edit my photographs. And also pls use your watermarks if you want.

Let me finish it here now. Food Photography is just a game to practice. And a concept that you have imbed in your mind. Keep on buying props like piece of clothes, colorful art papers, utensils etc and keep on clicking.
Thanks Kamalika for sharing your experience with us. I hope this will be helpful to many of us. Do drop in your feedback or questions related to this post.

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