Muslim Naan using Tangzhong method

February 16, 2019February 16, 2019 ~ Huma ~ Leave a comment

Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. ~ Ursula K. LeGuin~

Muslim Naan has its origin in Western Asia & is available in Gujarat & some parts of Maharashtra. It is also known as Sheermal in Hyderabad.

When you come across the word Naan, the picture of butter naan or tandoori naan comes to mind. But this Muslim Naan is not at all the same in taste nor in texture. Whenever Qalia was made, ammi used to order this delicious naan from bakery. This circular discs are little on the sweeter side and come in 5″, 6″ or 8″ diameter. One can find many roadside vendors selling it during the month of Ramadan.Traditionally , Muslim Naan is cut into 4, 6 or 8 parts (depending on the size) & mostly eaten with thin gravy of meat curry or chicken curry . Continue reading →

Food Photography – Learning Through Experience 3

April 28, 2014 ~ Huma ~ 26 Comments

Today we have a beautiful guest Lubna Karim from YummyFood with us who is sharing her food blogging journey with amazing photographs. I came to know her last year through one of her events, Joys From Fasting to Feasting where she had invited me for the guest post.
Though we didn’t start off well at first and still whenever we chat , it starts of with an argument hehe. But I have an utmost respect of her and her work. Her blog describes each phase of life, her happiness, sadness, difficulties, her turmoil & most importantly her passionate nature in the ways she deals with each part of her life with full commitment. She is a gifted writer with an amazing talent of food photography and styling. Today Lubna is sharing with us all her knowledge about food photography along with some tips to better blogging. Over to you Lubna.

Salam and Hello….Warm welcome to all the wonderful readers of Gheza-e-Shiriin. It’s been my immense pleasure to write a post for you all. Hope you enjoying reading this post. This post is all about my food blogging journey. Try to read each and every point carefully. ‘Experiment’ is the only term which I can suggest to you all when it is the matter of food photography. In food blogging, the most important two things apart from a good recipe and recipe writing style are, ‘Food Photography’ and ‘Food Styling’.

Lets first start with Food Photography……

KNOW YOUR CAMERA:

A lot more people ask me, how to improve food photography skills? Is it all about camera…??…Thus ‘Black Beauty’, a DSLR….help in taking good pictures??? These are some regular queries asked by many…My simple answer is ‘know your camera’. Even a basic camera can do magic. Read the manual which comes with camera carefully. Check out online what else is available regarding your camera. Read it. The more you know about your camera, the better. Experiment in all the modes available along with all the features.

LIGHT:

Natural sunlight is best of all. You might have read this zillion times…but one thing I have observed over the period of time is ‘Knowing Light’. Initially I use to take my food to living room or to front door or to terrace sometimes…just to get fresh natural light. Early morning light is different from evening 4pm light. The intensity of light is more during afternoons, which may give hard shadow to a picture.

One more thing which I have observed is, light coming from a particular direction. Say in the below picture the light is coming from right side window, which is North…not much change in light from 11 a.m. -3 p.m.

But in the picture below the light is coming from same right side but from east. The light tends to fade from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

The below picture is clicked in bright day light where the light is coming from top. No reflector is used.

In the picture below the light is coming from all the sides and I clicked it around 9.30 a.m., where the intensity of light is not more.

Natural light depends on lot more factors like, Weather, Country, Season, Building Floor, Size of light, Time of the day, etc.,

FOOD AND MOOD:

Showing mood of the food is one more aspect in food photography. Say in the picture below, I wanted to show wintry morning light in my soup…to go with post, weather and season…..

Nothing can be comforting than chilled lassi on a bright summer day….so I clicked this picture in the summer afternoon light…

If the recipe is for any occasion or festival give it the mood needed….The picture below is of cake which I made for my blog’s fifth anniversary…a candle and ribbon says it all….

I clicked this picture of Lukhmi during last Ramadan, and I need to show it…so the styling was done in such a way that you can know, it’s a festive food.

USE OF REFLECTORS & DIFFUSERS:

The key to good food photography is to learn how to diffuse and reflect (natural) light.

DIFFUSING LIGHT: Direct light or harsh natural light or abundant light can create harsh shadows or washed out bright spots in photos. This can be easily be handled by keeping a thin white sheer between the subject and light source. For example, a white cotton lining cloth will ease your work. This technique of using a sheer white cloth is called diffusing light. You can even check online for diffusers.

RELECTING LIGHT:

This can also be called as bouncing light. Using reflector you can bounce the light to spread evenly and you can even control shadows of the subject. You can see in the picture below my darling Lil’M is holding foam board for me. You can color foam boards to get different shades in a picture. Sometimes a thin sheet of aluminium foil can also be used as reflector.

Apart from these, there is side light, front light and back light. Take these pictures for example; I have shot these in three different lights…check out….

Hope by now you would have understood the light play….Experiment to experience the nature’s wonderful light play in your pictures.

FOOD STYLING:

Styling of food is to bring out best of any recipe. They say a man first eats with his eyes…so this implies to our food blogging too…Whenever anyone enters our blog, appealing picture of a recipe is more important. They are different recipes…recipes for every reason and every season….call it party food, wedding food, comfort food, routine food, kids special, breakfast, lunch box, romantic dinner recipes, drinks, summer recipes, winter recipes, even rainy day recipes….

With styling and plating you can bring out that season and reason of cooking of particular recipe. Some of the pictures below are quite an example for food styling depending on the concept of the food,

USE OF PROPS:

It is whole a concept in itself. Keeping the length of the post in mind…I am restricting this to talk about this in future if possible…White props are best for food photography. There is no limit for this…Keep your eyes open for props wherever you go…The best props which are always handy and I use more often are under Rs.50/-. I won’t pick up anything which is expensive and I am not comfortable clicking using it. Sometimes a picture doesn’t call for many props. A simple styling or no prop pictures can also be eye candy…These are some examples.

A simple fresh garnish can also do magic to the pictures…Check below.

Human touch in food pictures can give life to picture. Check this shot.

FOOD BLOGGING:

A clean neat layout with appealing header for a blog can also be a major factor when you are food blogging. Array of recipes with pictures if displayed in the side bar can enhance the look of the blog.

That’s all for now. If you are looking out to learn more on this subject, then the series on Food Photography & Styling on my blog from esteemed food bloggers has lot to say on this. Do check out. My pinterest boards on Food Photography & Styling and Low Light Food Photography help you learn more.

Hope you have wonderful time reading this post and hope this post of use to you. Thank you Huma for giving me this wonderful opportunity to write on a subject which is my favourite but never dared to write on it.

Thanks Lubna for giving my readers this amazing detailed post & we hope this will definitely help us to take much better photographs. As I always believe there’s a never fullstop at learning, this series will continue with more bloggers and we will Learn Through Their Experiences.
Till then Byeee and do put in your thoughts about this post and questions if any.

For the previous series of Food Photography – Learning through Experience

Food Photography – Learning Through Experience 2

December 18, 2013 ~ Huma ~ 9 Comments

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:

The presentation.

Creating the Mood around the Food served.

Capturing the Food from the right angle.

The Light.

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 4^th 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.