Case Study - Food Photo Session for Soyjoy

For more than a year now my publisher's been kept waiting for my draft. My second book was supposed to be released this year, but realistically speaking, even the end of the year seems pretty ambitious. So when I posted this photo to NCC Food Photography Club on Facebook I thought it would help if I wrote an instruction for this particular session, just to get me going.

So here it is, the first scratch of my upcoming book, "Becoming A Food Photographer."

Hope you enjoy it.

Sneak Peak and a Gratitude

It's been awhile.

Here I just need to share some photos I took for the next two books by NCC. Some kind of sneak peek, you may say.

Often times I was asked how to capture whole cakes, especially decorated cakes where the decoration must be captured as accurate as possible, without making the photos boring. Here I share some pictures from the upcoming book, they are all whole cakes, all decorated as the book suggested, hoping you can learn from them, same things I learned through one year trying to capture the beauty of 101 minicakes and cupcakes. If there are things you still want to ask, please do ask me, I will be more than happy to assist.

To me now, the previous long process of food photo session becomes much simpler and shorter. And easier, too. Good for my sanity. For one day session containing 5-20 food items to shoot, I used only 1-2 styling theme. So it was similar styling for 5 to 10 items, with small alterations here an there. Not only this strategy simplifies the work significantly, it also makes it easier for our editor and graphic designer to put them all together in one solid design concept. So, everybody's happy, and I hope our readers will be, too.

Sony SLT-A55V: Killer!

Taken by Citra Anggraini Kusuma

What do you expect from a mirrorless camera? I expect smaller and lighter camera, of course, yet reliable to produce near-DSLR quality photos, of course. Not too much to ask, huh?

I was lucky the other day, my friend lent me his Sony SLT-A55V with two lenses: 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 and  50mm f/1.4. I know I always appreciate any camera, how simple it is, how complicated it is. Every camera is special and personal. As if it has its own life and character that communicates and adapts accordingly to its master. But I gotta say I was blown away by this baby.

Disclaimer:
Sony didn't pay me to write this post. Although it will be nice if they did :D
But you can browse on Shopbot to find even newer release of the camera.

The focus is deadly fast and accurate, color is amazing, sharpness and crispness are beyond expectation. I took it to the Food Photography Workshop where Citra, my foodstylist, and I had fun playing with it and produced great food photos. I also took it with me on my diving trip to Tulamben, Bali, as I thought my DSLR would be too bulky to carry.

So these are the photos taken with the camera with no or minimum editing. And by minimum, I mean one or two clicks max on level or color balance.