Power of Perseverance

0 Comments
smoothie bowl by food photogrpher © Suchita Kalele

I hope you had a chance to visit me on Instagram. It is where I am most active these days and post a few times in a week. I happen to do an Instagram food photography challenge hosted by Kimberly Espinel of the blog The Little Plantation, where she asks you to post your food photos based on a particular theme. I love Kimberly’s work and idea of doing a food photography challenge with her always intrigued me. One week the challenge was to shoot just one bowl or one cup or one dish or one glass of food and no other props and table setting in the frame. You see the props and table settings help to make your photos look beautiful and guide viewer’s eye in the frame, without them I was lost. I was shooting a bowl of berry smoothie and somehow my photos were not working. Since only one bowl of yogurt didn’t had enough visual interest, the photo looked blah (photo below). I kept adding other things in the frame to make it work but that’s not what the challenge was. I was frustrated and decided to call it a day. The yogurt bowl went into the refrigerator and I went for a walk to think clearly.

smoothie bowl by food photogrpher © Suchita Kalele

Next day I chose to do things differently. Breakfast in bed was on my mind and the photos were better than the previous day. But again, the challenge was to shoot only one bowl and no props.
smoothie bowl by food photogrpher © Suchita Kalele

I realized that for this photo to work, there needs to be enough interest in the bowl itself to hold the viewers eye there. So, on the third day, I paid extra attention to the styling of the smoothie bowl and I got the shot I was hoping for (the top shot in the post). And I guess I was creatively charged and decided to shoot a human element by sitting under the tripod. I squeezed myself under there and again got a shot with the unique perspective.
smoothie bowl by food photogrpher © Suchita Kalele

This one bowl of berry smoothie shot over the three days taught me a very important lesson- TO NOT GIVE UP. Sometimes the ideas don't work and it takes time to figure them out.  Sometimes we just have to take a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other and see what happens. It was one of those days for me and because of the three days of constant efforts, I got the shot I was happy with. My favorite photographer Rachel Korinek has also talked about working on a images of an apricot pie for up to a month. She was perfecting various elements (from lattice crust to the colors she wanted etc.) which seem rather small but when come together creates magic. That’s the power of perseverance my friends. 
   

Suchita Kalele

No comments:

Post a Comment

Instagram