Just released: Food Photography For Everyone. Yes, everyone!

How is it to take a food photo that really works? Can I use my simple pocket camera? How can I start with my entry level DSLR? How is it to perform a photo session when I am on a budget, have only few equipment and choking constraining time? How does different lighting make the food different? What is it about focus, DoF, PoI, angle, composition, styling, props? What are they really all about? I just want to take a good food photo. Period. How?

Coming Up this July!

http://www.twitvid.com/embed.php?guid=CUVWD&autoplay=0

Video by Pinot

Ooh, yeah! I can’t wait to announce this!

Ok, here we go. Once upon a time, 4 female foodbloggers, met online and got to know each other via blogs and emails. Two of them live in Kuwait, one lives in New Zealand, one in Jakarta, Indonesia. They were bonded by two things they’re really passionate about: food and photography. One sunny day, they decided to write a book about the two: food photography. They worked on it for about 8 months, and now the book is on its way to the bookstores in Indonesia!

They call themselves EmpatRana, which translates as Four Shutters. They are Arfi Binsted, Dita Ichwandardi, Irra Fachriyanthi and me, Riana Ambarsari

Here how the cover will look like:

Here, we talk about food photography in simple, easy to understand terms, the way we learnt it in the first place. We reveal our humble home studios, which are basically a table, a source of light, some help from reflector and props, and more little help from our children .

The book is projected to be available at bookstores in Indonesia this July 13rd, 2011 at the latest. So stay alert, you will wanna have this, trust me!

About Fixing Things On Your Own

 
I know, I know, most of you will frown. Especially those of you who live in Indonesia, where the cost of repairmen is fairly low. So convenient to just simply make a call and let them take care of the business while you’re sipping your ice tea and reading the latest Martha Stewart Living on the porch. And for how much? The cost certainly won’t kill your cash flow and thus it will be totally, totally worth it. Hence the ice tea

However, you know, I was born a crafty hand. I inherited it from my late beloved Mom, who fixed her own sewing machine and would climb up the roof and saved us from fluttering potentially tumbling tiles tragedy. So I grew up not only adapting some fixing skill from my Mom, but also in deep appreciation toward this craftsmanship and the zeal that goes along with it. I figure if I live in western countries it would be very useful for us to master this skill. I know my Mom still needed a repairman to fix her oven, but I think if she didn’t have 7 kids hanging on her back 24 hour a day I’m pretty sure she would’ve taken the matter into her own hands.

I came across this website about 2 years ago, PartSelect, it sells spare parts of almost all appliances you could possibly have at home. I know it doesn’t make your jaw dropped, but here is the catch: what if it tells you how to fix your appliances?