Photography Styling Challenge #9: Fashion

Photography Styling Challenge

This month’s theme for the photography styling challenge is Fashion. Now fashion sure is interesting but really vast and comprehensive.
Ideally I would have loved, if I had some beautiful model to work with, but guess I need that kind of skill to photograph a stunning face too. And I, my dear readers, am still an amateur.

So I play safe and go with some of my favorite junk jewelry and my two most loved scarves for the shoot. I decided to picture on white background – a first for me.

Well, I have to be honest here, I have started enjoying these monthly challenges and it gives me greater pleasure when a theme challenges my creativity. I did enjoy the shoot this time but somehow am not that elated with the results. I think I could have done it better. Maybe I will do another shoot and this time with a pretty face 🙂 But for now, this is what I have –

Charm Bracelet

Hand Painted Scarf along with my favorite natural stone neck piece

Big Ben on my scarf 🙂

My favorite ring

Junk Jewelry

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. To check out the other participants, click here:

Redesigned By M
At the corner of Happy and Harried
Inge Kathleen Photography
A Woven Life
City Girl Searching
The Delicious World Of Chefette Spicy
A Tree Grows In The Bayou
I Live Under A Rock Called Table Mountain
Hooked on homes
Mera Kitchen

If you would like to join in the fun please click on the photography styling challenge button in the sidebar!

To see my previous challenge entries, click here

Hope you all have a beautiful day!

Namrata

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Photography Styling Challenge #7: Chaos

Happy New Year Lovely People!
Chaos is not exactly what one has in mind when embarking on a new path, right? New year, fresh start, some raw resolutions and I title my post as Chaos? 🙂 don’t worry readers, I started the year fresh, pledging not to make my resolutions redundant.

Photography Styling Challenge

This one is for a photography Styling Challenge put together by the very lovely M. If any of you do wish to join, please click on the Photography styling challenge button in the sidebar and join in the fun!

The theme for this month is Chaos. Last month was Order. Since order and chaos go hand in hand, M puts this interesting clause to use 3 items from last month’s order shoot.

I have photographed both Order and Chaos in the same concept: Scrap book making of a fun vacation.

Having used almost all the items from last time’s shoot, I have added a picture of a trinket box which my daughter loves to collect. The box/bottle contains myriad beads, random stones, wooden and glass junk.

Here are a few shots:

Chaos Reigns

Supply Box – So disorganized

Beads trinkets and much more!

Filling in the gaps

Scissors galore

Well, my personal verdict is that I wish I could have used lesser items and still made it look chaotic – which is quite difficult to do. It was all so easy to keep adding stuff 🙂

To check out the lovely work of my co participants, click here:

Redesigned By M
redlovinpixie
At the corner of Happy and Harried
Inge Kathleen Photography
Pies And Puggles
A Woven Life
City Girl Searching
The Delicious World Of Chefette Spicy
A Tree Grows In The Bayou
I Live Under A Rock Called Table Mountain
Hooked on homes

Looking forward to read what you think of my chaotic mess.
I hope each one of you get what you want from this year. Have a beautiful 2014!

-Best Wishes,
Namrata

Photography Styling Challenge #2: Table Setting

This is my most difficult assignment, EVER. I was so stressed about this challenge, that I almost backed out. Almost.

Table setting, food styling, making things pretty is a herculean task for me. I am no natural. It may sound funny, but I have an eye for beauty and aesthetics but find it immensely difficult to recreate it. And a table setting themed challenge was intimidating to say the least.

I am trying with my little point n shoot, but still have a very very long way to go. Trying is not enough. Have to really buckle up and maybe read more and play around with the camera more. Hence the entry into the challenge, a way to keep me on my toes where the camera is concerned.

A South Indian Table setting

Truth: I forgot about the challenge until Anjana posted hers. My hands were full with in laws coming to visit us for a few days, husband travelling and me falling sick.
Anjana’s entry was a wake up call. Then my absent mind even forgot about the submission date( first monday of every month)… so bad.

M (of redesignedbym) did give me an option to back out or chip in occasionally, and I almost considered it. But I didn’t feel good about it. I wanted to try. I had to do this.

A complete South Indian Meal – on a banana leaf

There are two reasons for my apprehensions:

1. My indoor pictures suck. Big time. I have taken to shoot most of my food on my terrace garden during the day time, but a table setting theme doesn’t give me luxury of setting up a table there. Simply not enough space. And then I decided to do a picnic style theme replete with sandwiches and canapes and Indian chaat outdoor on a mat, not a table. But rains like to play games with poor souls. It was a huge risk. So, that idea went out of the window.

2. My dining table is not very appealing. It is attached from end to the wall, and thus immovable. It is away from many natural sources of light and with all the switches on, the entire setting makes for a very unwanted bright picture. Not nice at all.

After a lot of ‘I can do this, or that.. or wait.. maybe this…. or no no.. this is better’ ideas, I finally zeroed in on a South Indian Themed table setting. The husband argued that South Indians have their platter spread out on the floor… and this was a ‘table’ setting theme, but I still stuck on. Nowadays, the meal is served on tables too.

Use of green banana leaves, white jasmine flowers, orange marigolds got me little excited:

Jasmine braids for little steel tumblers

Since I made such a ruckus, husband and a few friends joined in to help. My bet is that they did their bit so that I would stop whining and cribbing 😉

I planned the menu out, a simple wholesome lunch of some steamed hot rice, spicy sambhar, tangy rasam, crunchy poriyals, fresh kosambari and spiced buttermilk.

I got extra banana leaves and my friend helped me cut out small coasters from them. Red dinner napkins, rolled and tightly knotted with strip long leaves, with a marigold stuck on it, added color to the bed of green.

The highlight for me was my fruit wooden tray, which was scrubbed clean, and layered with clean leaves and then filled with hot steaming rice. It proved attractive and inviting.

Buttermilk, rice and poriyal

It’s all about lighting:
I have no direct chandelier above the table to give direct lighting. There are many myriad fancy lights around the table, hence all need to be switched on, else one portion dulls out and the other stands too bright in contrast. This is one of my most pressing concerns where indoor photography is concerned. There is too little or too much light.

Lunch

So, what do you guys think? The setting and all was in fact very pleasing and aesthetic. But I was not so happy with the pictures. In spite of trying from varied angles and directions, something was amiss. Too much light? The immovable table? The camera?

Well. I finally tried and put my entry in. That is what I am most relieved of, as of now. It was a huge learning experience, not so much in photography, but in setting the table. The myriad ideas to present food and lay an inviting and delightful spread is surely an art.

Make sure to check out the other participants of this challenge:

redesignedbym

redlovinpixie

At the Corner of Happy and Harried

Inge Kathleen Photography

Photography Styling Challenge #1 – Food

A photography challenge could not have come at a better time. Exploring the nuances, techniques, styling, plating, lighting…( I could go on and on) has me hooked on to the camera .. like all the time!

Redesigned By M and Red Lovin Pixie, 2 amazing beautiful blogs, have issued a monthly Photography Styling Challenge starting in July. This month’s theme is FOOD(What a way to kick start a challenge!).
The rules are simple. No photo editing apart from cropping is allowed.

I chanced upon their amazing invite through another blogger friend Anjana of “Happy and Harried” fame. Anjana has posted interesting inviting pictures of her simple vanilla cake served with tea. Very English.
Grabbing this opportunity, I decided to chip in too. I have been fiddling with my camera for sometime now. Time to test it a little.

I baked a Dark Double Chocolate Walnut Brownie today(recipe to be posted later). The pictures were clicked on my terrace garden in the afternoon. I clicked several pictures, but since the requirement was that of pure unadulterated photographs, I have only a few to send to the challenge.

Making use of the abundant natural light, here are some of the pure shots:

Sinful Indulgence

A close up:

Dark Double chocolate walnut brownie served with warm milk

One with a tilt:

Hello Kitty eyes the treat

And a couple of unadulterated shots from a very recent post of mine:
Date Nuts Fig Energy Rolls

Again shot on my terrace garden –

Simple, beneficial, nutritious

Up close:

salubrious layers

Well.. this is it. I have a point and shoot Canon SD1300. The ISO was on Auto when I took the pictures(a mistake? any suggestions?). Hoping to fine tune my clicks and learn a lot through innovative challenges like these!

Please do check out beautiful photographs over at:

Redesigned by M
Red Lovin Pixie
At the corner of Happy and Harried

Love,
Namrata