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Winter 2010 Edition
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2 PhotoYou
106
News4 ReadeR letteRs Your letters and views of PhotoYou
6 Zoom in on the latest news in snapshots, shutterbugs and gadgets in the beautiful world of photography
10 Back to Black introduces the best gift anyone can buy for their loved ones – the Canon PIXMA Black Series Printer
12 aRt of PhotogRaPhy shows off the visual art that is making waves
Emulate18 natuRe's Best and the latest book by world-
renowned photographer, Anne Geddes
26 life thRough a lens gets up close with New York-based Melisa Teo
34 shoot to thRill discovers Canon's Face of EOS, Melissa Boey and her fascination with photography
Empower42 fashion foRwaRd Learn how to shoot good fashion
pictures with photographer Zhang Jingna
50 how deeP is youR PictuRe breaks down the simple facts of the oft-used term "depth of field"
52 fat of the land Perfect that scenery shot
58 twilight teaches you how to capture the moon
60 haPPy family dishes out easy advice on how to picture your loved ones this Christmas
66 BRacketing exPosuRes shows you how to get that travel picture just right
68 dance in focus Master the art of shooting movement in dance
78 eat. shoot. yummy! Food blogs are all the rage; here's how to fill your blog with delectable photos
84 let's go inside Learn the tricks of shooting consistently good photos indoors
Engage88 suRviving the wet Protect your camera from the
wet and cold season90 aRm candy Check out the prettiest camera bags in
store and start hinting heavily!
ContentsPhotoyou — Winter 2010
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50
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118
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Winter 2010 3
96 what's that?! Uncover the functions of your DSLR
98 the aRt of giving illustrates how Canon's SELPHY can make great Christmas gifts
104 snaP to unclutteR shows you how pictures can organise your life
Experience106 mysteRy PaRadise takes a climb up to Shangri-La
with Janice Wong for a look at paradise
114 kitty castaways hangs out at the island of Enoshima
118 the light fRom within features Melisa Teo's travel to a spiritual place
Regulars124 shoot & tell We eyeball our readers’ pictures and
give our two cents worth
127 Submit your pictures to our CONTEST and win great Canon prizes
ContentsPhotoyou — Winter 2010
PhotoYouPresident, AsiA PAcific/lAtin AmericA
Patricia Hespanha
editor-in-cHief Dora Cheok
design director David Ross
Meet the Team!
mAnAging editor Valerie Wee
Art director Melanie Tu
designer Sharlene Leong
ProofreAders Evelyn Tan-Rogers
Shawn Pang
Our Sales People
PUBlisHer & mAnAging director Christopher Axberg
groUP Advertising director, AsiA Philip Yeo
circUlAtion mArketing director Sharon Low
cHief finAnciAl officer, AsiA PAcific Jeremy Jacobs
oPerAtions director, AsiA PAcific Andrew Grace
ProdUction controller Lim Ling Ling
senior AccoUnt mAnAger Stephanie Tok
Published quarterly by Reader’s Digest Asia Pte. Ltd. for Canon Singapore Pte
Ltd, Company Number:200607506M © 2009/10 Reader’s Digest Asia Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner in whole or part in English or
other languages prohibited. Protection secured under the International and Pan-
American copyright conventions. Reader’s Digest, The Digest and the Pegasus logo
are registered trademarks of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. All PhotoYou
logos are trademarks of Reader's Digest Association, Inc. used under licence.
All rights reserved. Printed by Times Printers Pte Ltd, 16 Tuas Ave. 5, Singapore
639340. Singapore MICA (P) 204/01/2010. Malaysia KDN PPS-1764/04/2011(028565).
Registered Representative: Patricia Hespanha. Address: 10 Eunos Road 8, #12-03,
Singapore Post Centre, Singapore 408600.
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78 PhotoYou
Kopi and Kaya ToastA well-taken food photo can evoke good memories.
settings
ISO 640 • f/3.2 • t 1/60sec
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Winter 2010 79
Eat.Shoot.Yummy!
Food blogger Leslie Tay lets PhotoYou in on some of the secrets to shooting the delicious in food
words and photos Leslie Tay of ieatishootipost.sg
W ith the rise of mobile
phone cameras and
social networking sites,
food photography has
taken off in a big way.
Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to see people taking photos of
what they are about to eat. The number of photos tagged “Food”
on the photo-sharing website Flickr has increased tenfold to
six million in just two years. People take photos of almost
everything they eat. From hawker foods to high-end gourmet
dining, home cooked meals to school lunches – anything that’s
edible is fair game.
As a result, a new genre of photography has been born – that
of shooting food on the go. Traditionally, food photography was
reserved for the professionals who were shooting for advertising
agencies and magazines. Now it seems that just about anyone
with a camera can potentially be a food photographer. But
ultimately, the picture will make or break the medium, be it
a blog or an advertisement. It’s vital to get food pictures right,
and most importantly, make them drool worthy.
Unlike other forms of photography, food photos engage
all the five senses because it involves our sense of taste. A good
food photo should be able to evoke food memories that elicit
a physical response like a “mmm”, moist lips and a growling
tummy. Many of the participants at our food photography
workshops agree that this is one of the main reasons why they
share photos of the food they eat!
In this article I will highlight some tips on how to take
better-looking food photos at a hawker centre or restaurant,
where all you have is your DSLR and the delectable dish in
front of you. Your photos can still look delicious if you follow a
few simple rules, and the good news is that you don’t even need
an expensive camera to achieve it!
LightingMost professional food photos are shot in a studio with
controlled lighting. For the person who wants to simply take a
photo of the dish before it disappears forever down the stomach,
there are practical limitations to contend with.
Posh restaurants usually have dim lighting and hawker
centres often use fluorescent light, so how do we get around
this problem? Try to shoot most of your photos during the day
so that you can take advantage of natural daylight. At hawker
centres and coffee shops, tables around the periphery provide
the best light as the dish is illuminated with ambient light and
there is a brighter source of directional light coming from
either a window or the open side of the food centre.
As a general rule, food looks best when there is a bit of sheen
and translucency. This can be achieved by positioning your dish
with directional light coming from a 10 or 2 o’clock position.
80 PhotoYou
Front Lighting vs Back LightingProper lighting can really bring out the positives in your dish.
settings
ISO 640 • f/5.6 • t 1/50sec
settings
ISO 640 • f/4.5 • t 1/80sec
The back lighting will help create translucency, which adds an
extra dimension to ingredients like prawn shells, thinly sliced
slivers of fat, or crumbs of a sugee cake like the photos above.
We all love food that is juicy and moist, and with back lighting
you will be able to capture the glistening sheen of that layer of oil
on top of your slice of bacon. It will also help to create shadows
and accentuate meat fibres, making your photo irresistibly drool
worthy. A white card placed in front of the dish can sometimes
be used to reflect available light around and provide fill lighting
to lessen harsh shadows at the front of the dish.
Go ‘Au Naturale’One of the most important tips you should know concerns the
use of the flash in food photography. Food shot from a compact
camera with the direct pop-up flash is one of the surest ways
of making food look unappetising. The fact is that we seldom
see food or anything else for that matter with a light source
coming out from our forehead, so a plate of your favourite
fried noodles will look flat and soulless. The flash is a necessary
evil which will come in handy when there is simply not enough
light to take a photo. If there is enough ambient light, try to
increase the ISO and open the aperture as wide as possible,
while using your camera bag to steady the camera and reduce
camera shake. When you do need to use the flash, the simplest
way to achieve an acceptable result without too much fuss is to
bounce the flash off the ceiling. Whatever the case may be, try
to avoid using direct flash as far as you can. For food lovers like
myself, I would rather not take a photo if it was going to turn
out bad, so sometimes, you just have to comfort yourself with
the thought that the memory of a good meal is good enough.
Compose for Maximum EffectWhen it comes to composition, the same rules apply to food
as they do with other subjects. The most natural thing to do
for most beginners is to put the dish right in the centre of the
photo and ensure they have a nice margin around the sides
of the bowl so that everything is captured in the photo. This
seldom produces compelling photos. There are two important
aspects that we want to focus on in composition. The first is
how to compose your shots and the second is cropping.
Front lighting Back lighting
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Rule of ThirdsFor maximum effect, place the hero of your dish right at the intersection of two lines.
settings
ISO 400 • f/5.6 • t 1/25sec
The Rule of Thirds and Fibonacci SpiralsWhen I look at a bowl of prawn noodle soup, the first thing I
ask myself is which part of the dish is the most compelling and
try to focus on that. With prawns, as with people, the eyes are
often the bits that will capture the most attention. This is the
part that needs to be placed close to the “power point” when
employing the rule of thirds.
The rule of thirds is a basic concept in photography
that involves placement of objects along lines that divide the
frame into thirds. If you divide your photo into thirds both
horizontally and vertically, you will end up with nine equal
squares. The four corners of the middle square are the “power
points” and placement of your subject close to the power points
will make for balanced composition.
If you are a student of photography, you will no doubt
have been exposed to the idea of the rule of thirds. But have
you ever asked yourself why it works? Well, the rule of thirds
is an approximation that there exists a divine proportion that
is found in nature. This divine proportion is based on the
jOIn the wOrkShOpThese are just some of the tips that are shared during the food photography workshops which are organised in conjunction with Canon Singapore. For more details, go to http://ieatishootipost.sg/2010/08/canon-ieat-food-photography-workshop.html
tip
82 PhotoYou
settings
ISO 640 • f/2.8 • t 1/100sec
Fibonacci sequence, which consists of a progression of numbers
that is derived from the sum of the two preceding numbers i.e. 1,
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 . . . to infinity. If you now take the consecutive
number pair 13 and 8 and use them to draw a rectangle, you will
produce a perfect rectangle. It is perfect because you can place
subsequent rectangles formed with the preceding number pairs,
i.e. 8 and 5, within this rectangle and it will fit perfectly. You
can continue to do this with subsequent number pairs. In the
end you will have a series of rectangles within a rectangle. If you
now connect the opposing corners of the squares that have been
formed with a smooth spiral, you will derive a Fibonacci spiral.
This spiral is found everywhere in nature, from nautilus shells to
the spiral of the Milky Way!
Now that you know about the Fibonacci spiral, let’s apply
it to our food photos. As you can see, the lines in the Fibonacci
sequence basically divide each rectangle roughly into a third, or
a ratio of 1.618 to be exact. We now arrange our dishes so that
it fits into a Fibonacci curve and hey presto, suddenly you have
created a photo that looks well balanced. It is not a random
occurrence. It is your eyes telling you that you are looking
at something which we have all been nurtured to perceive as
natural and beautiful.
Of course, both the rule of thirds and Fibonacci curves
serve only as guides. Once you have taken enough photos, you
will find that you are composing your photos without much
thought about these rules. But when you examine your best
photos, you might just find that you have unconsciously
employed these rules to achieve your best-looking shots!
Cropping Keeps Things InterestingOne of the easiest ways for beginners to improve their photos
is simply to zoom in and crop out any part of the photo that is
uninteresting. Zooming in and cropping often means cutting
off part of a bowl or a plate, which might be counter-intuitive
at first, but when you get used to it, you will be able to create
more compelling shots. When you always try to include the
whole plate, your photos will often have lots of empty, boring
spaces. Instead of looking at the plate, try to frame your shots
just by focusing on the food itself and look at the plate with
your peripheral vision. Then take a photo, placing the most
interesting ingredient along the one third line. In that way you
will be able to zoom in close enough to see the texture of the
different ingredients.
Choosing Your Focus PointsChoosing the right point of focus is very important in food
photography as you can have a lot of components in a small
space all vying for attention. In the photos on the right, the
further picture is more compelling than the one on the left
because the vermicelli is more interesting to look at than the
green vegetable. Subtle differences like this can change the
impact of the photo so make sure you choose your focus points
carefully.
Depth of FieldFood photos benefit from a shallow depth of field where there
is one small area in focus and the rest of the photo is blurred.
Fibonacci SpiralLike the rule of thirds, placing your focus within this spiral instantly makes your shot look better.
Fibonacci spiralThis theory suggests that a divine proportion exists in nature.
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Winter 2010 83
settings (both)
ISO 640 • f/4.0 • t 1/160sec
There is a scientific reason for this. The distance at which we
see our food is usually within half an arm’s length. If you try
to look at anything at this distance you will notice that only
the centre of your vision is clear while the rest of the objects
in the other parts of your visual field are blurred. Hence when
taking food photos, the dish looks more natural and hence
more appetising if it mimics what the eye actually sees.
The problem is that the blur (known technically as
“bokeh”) is not easily produced unless you use a good DSLR
like the Canon EOS 550D. To obtain a smooth bokeh, you
need to achieve a shallow depth of field and that means big
apertures, which means expensive lenses. A lens which can
offer an aperture of f/2.8 is usually very good for food photos.
I currently use the Canon EF 24mm-70mm f/2.8L USM lens
for most of my food photos, and most of the photos featured
in this article are shot with that setup. If you are using an
APS-C camera, the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens
is excellent as is the EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens. I
have used both these lenses on a Canon EOS 450D and they
produce excellent results.
Adding Human InterestTaking shots of food does not have to be limited to just the
dish alone. You can make the photo come alive by adding
some human interest in the background. This is an easy way
of filling up empty space in the background, which would
otherwise be occupied by a plain table surface or something
rather innate. A hand holding a pair of chopsticks can really
help to liven up the photo without taking too much attention
away from the subject. Of course nicely manicured hands
make for prettier photos!
Focus PointLearn to pick only the most delicious part of your dish to focus on.
Food & WorkLeslie Tay in his food photography workshops.
Ramen Don’t be afraid to add a human element to make your shot stand out.
settings
ISO 800 • f/5.6 • t 1/60sec
