Saturday Snapshots Series #8 Holding The Food: Kotimbir Vadi

Saturday Snapshots week #8, theme was  ‘Holding The Food’. Holding food also known as ‘the human touch’ is trending and is my personal favorite. For more details click here.

Holding the food is a great way to bring food alive and breathing. It also gives your blog's readers a chance to peep into your lives- be it your kitchen, your family or actions. You can find some of my (not the best) pictures on this theme here, here and here.

I shot Khotimbir Vadi (coriander steamed dumplings) for this task.

Saturday Snapshots Series #8 - Holding The Food

This is our Week 8 at Saturday Snapshots, a food photography series. We began clicking simple things like tomatoes, lentils, chillies etc; now time to get serious. When I say serious, I mean you must click with passion, follow the instructions, mention your camera settings in your pictures and most importantly try harder. Click with complete dedication and try to figure out what’s wrong and how can you get better.

This week’s theme is ‘Holding The Food’. Holding food also known as ‘the human touch’ is trending and is my personal favorite. All you need to do is Hold The Food- be it a cupcake, a picnic basket, a cup of coffee or just fresh vegetables.

What to do:

• Click food that are tiny in size like ice creams, cupcakes, fruits, a bowl of candies etc. These food are great to shoot when held my kids. So all you lovely mothers dress up your kids and shoot. Some great examples are here, here and here.

• Background must be perfect- For dark food like chocolate cake, coffee, pies etc look for darker or rustic background; wear something black or brown or grey like here, here, or here. Same goes with lighter coloured food, white on white;  Black and white or yellow on yellow.

• Set up the mood- Yes your image must show a mood. Shoot a glass of fresh drink in the park to depict a sunny day or click a pie  your gloves and apron on -like here or here. Wear your jackets and jumpers for a wintry/warm feel like here or here. Having a party? Click and show the mood of celebration- like here.

• Think beyond plain whites and blacks. How about wrapping food in paper like here, here and here?? Or use vintage plates and bowls like here and here.  

• Aperture is your best friend- Shoot within the range of larger aperture between f 1.4 to f 2.0. Larger aperture will only let food be in the focus and the background will be blurred-this gives a nice dramatic touch.

• Don’t go overboard- Play it simple, nice and clean. Don’t include too many colours, props or texture. Or use no props at all- just your hands like here, here and here. Keep it simple and elegant. 

• No action shots- Just hold the food; don’t move things- no action shots like pouring, spreading the frosting, kneading the dough etc are needed. (we will get to this later ;)

Holding the food is a great way to bring food alive and breathing. It also gives your blog's readers a chance to peep into your lives- be it your kitchen, your family or actions. You can find some of my (not the best) pictures on this theme here, here and here. Need more ideas and inspiration, just see this Pinterest Board.

• Please link back to the hosts (we want more people to join in). Simply copy and paste- Saturday Snapshots-food photography series hosted at Merry Tummy and Siris Food.
• Once your post is ready, use the below linky tool at the host’s page and link.
•  It is important to watermark (write your name/blog name/blog logo) on your pictures. 
• Use the logo, it helps to spread the word.
• We are active on twitter and Facebook. You can share your pictures and post link at our Facebook group. For twitter use #ss (hash tag ss)
• You don't have to do a separate blogpost for SS, just include the picture in any of your post.
• Submit your entries till 16th Feb 2015.

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Thats all folks! I hope you have fun and also learn something new.

Saturday Snapshots Series #5- Lentils/Legumes

Saturday Snapshots week 5 task was to shoot lentils or legumes. I clicked these chickpeas for my Aloo Chole post.

Sending this at Saturday Snapshots'' hosted at Merry Tummy and Siris Food.

See-Week 1- yellow fruit or vegetable

Week 2- Chillies

Week 3-Cut Vegetables

Week 4-Whole Spices

Saturday Snapshots Series #4- Whole Spices

Week 4 at Saturday Snapshots was to shoot Whole Spices and this is what I clicked:)

Live life with a little spice

Sending this at Saturday Snapshots'' hosted at Merry Tummy and Siris Food.

See-Week 1- yellow fruit or vegetable

Week 2- Chillies

Week 3-Cut Vegetables

If you are interested please see the announcement page HERE.

Saturday Snapshots Series #3 -Cut Vegetable/s

Just can not believe that it is third week already. Oh yes I am talking about our food photography series ''Saturday Snapshots'' hosted at Merry Tummy and Siris Food.

This week's task was to shoot 'cut vegetables' -the theme depicts the colorfulness and joy of preparing food.

I was preparing Garlic Chilli Tomato Chutney and this was I clicked.

See-Week 1- yellow fruit or vegetable
Week 2- Chillies

Saturday Snapshots Series #2 -Chillies

Burnt and smoked green chilli shoot for Saturday Snapshots Series #2 hosted by me that is Merry Tummy and Siris Food.

Because, I love the smokey hint

Sending this to Saturday Snapshots-food photography series hosted at Merry Tummy and Siris Food.

Saturday Snapshots Series 1

Thank you all for joining in us at Saturday Snapshots. We appreciate that you want to learn and have some fun clicking food.

The first theme of our event was Yellow Fruit/Vegetable. Summers, sunshine depicts the colour yellow very well, so we chose it as the theme. Hope you all liked and enjoyed with playing with the colour :)

Here is my picture.

Love is like a pineapple, sweet and undefinable. - Piet Hein

I am very excited to see your work. Please link below, the linky tool will be open till Tuesday.

Please do share your picture on our FB Group and twitter with hastagSS1 (#SS1)

Sending this to Saturday Snapshots-food photography series hosted at Merry Tummy and Siris Food.

Confessions Of A Food Blogger...

You are always told and taught that no work is less important- right?? So how would you feel when someone thinks what you are doing has no worth or is super easy. When someone asks me what I do, I tell them I am a food blogger. OK, so you write recipes-that’s it? This is what people generally reply or think.

So here are some confessions of a Food Blogger-

• That I produce recipes; I follow the recipes and then publish them on my blog. I do this, so that my errors are not repeated by someone else. I do this, so that others learn from my experiences. I do this, so that someone else is benefited through my tried recipes.

• That there are times when I click 200 pictures of the new meal that I have prepared and not even one is good enough to go on the blog. So, so, so many times I have cried and prayed to  Weather God to let the sun shine because I am baking a cake and want to click pictures.*cry*cry*. I wish they could appreciate that clicking good pictures, understanding the camera, styling the food is a very time consuming and difficult task- just like any other work.

• That the whole process of blogging is a complex structure. One needs to think about not just what to cook, but to also buy the required ingredients, cook it up, note the quantities of the ingredients used, let the food cool, present with style, click pictures keeping in mind unlimited camera settings, edit the pictures, typing the recipes, write the content so that it is enjoyed by the readers...no it doesn’t end here. Then one needs to share the post on social networking sites- Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and many such online communities. This by the way helps us to get traffic, page views and visitations.

• That I receive questions, suggestions and emails that want my immediate attention. For instance, once a mother saw this Mango Pickle recipe and she wanted to know what can be done to preserve the pickle as her daughters were travelling to USA for studies (she mentioned it was urgent). I saw that email at 6am and I did reply to it right away.  So yes, food bloggers do have some urgent emails and queries to respond to.

• That I can handle criticism but not insanely rude comments on my site. Okay! I understand that you tried my recipe and you didn't like it, but, remember we all have different taste buds- right??

• That so many people copy our content without giving any due credits. It is hard to fight and argue with such people. Sigh! But this is the fact.

No guys, neither I am sad that I am a food blogger, nor am I trying to show off what I do.  I just want people to read this and understand that like any other 9-5 shift job, blogging is also 24/7 profession that needs complete dedication, hard work and patience.

My food blog is not a hobby. It’s not my ‘work’. Merry Tummy is my world and I am so glad and happy to do something that I love every single day. Thank YOU all, for appreciating my work, leaving comments, following my blog and doing any little thing that makes me feel special about being a Food Blogger. THANK YOU.

What do you think food blogging is? Have you come across people who think blogging is easy? How do you handle criticism? Please share your stories.

(All the posters and pictures above are my creation)