On 19th of January it has been my 16th anniversary of arriving to UK!!! It felt like yesterday, I stepped out from the bus in the Newport, South Wales bus station. During those years I met many people, worked in many places and I never regret my decision to stay here.
On day of my anniversary I decided I should make myself a present and I placed an order with Club Backdrops. The same day I started to follow them on Instagram. During that afternoon, I found they were in the process of moving to a larger studio and they have decided to close from next Monday the 22nd. I was so excited I managed to place my order right in time I commented on their post and not long after they replied to my comment:
I am not easily pleased, but I received package next morning. Everything well packed and without no issue. I was so surprised to find out, I received two additional backdrops and short but nice note inside 😊
I was thinking what first photo should I take and which backdrop to use. I decided to compare the same setting on two different backdrops. Please let me know which one you rather.
I am not obligated to recommend Club Backdrops in any way, but I received from them such an outstanding customer service would be rude not to mention this to you all.
I had such an amazing day with lots of positive experiences! It is very important to share a such a good vibe!!!
I recently became an ambassador of a Huel brand. I was their customer for some time now. I love their product and their culture and came to the conclusion why not to join them. Huel products are vegan, lactose-free, GMO-free, meal replacements and they are approved by Registered Nutritionists. If you ever would like to try the, please find £10 discount code here.
Why am I talking about them? Before the Pancake Day Huel’s marketing team posted a pancake receipt on a social medias. As I am huge food person, it came to me it would be a great idea to make them and perform a photo shooting at the same time.
I failed so badly, I could not make one proper pancake, it was a disaster. I had all the set up for my photo shooting all ready and waiting I had to come with another idea.
I modified the receipt a little and baked the cake!!! This whole journey prompted me to include Huel product into the photo.
To incorporate your favourite brands into our photography is an idea to call their attention. If this trick does not work, you are not losing anything, your portfolio grows, and you become better and better with every click. The company receiving extra attention. We all know how important recommendations and positive reviews are, by posting your work they will receive both.
This time I went one step ahead. I used another favourite product of mine in the same photo session. Sweet Freedom I am talking about. I am enjoying products form both of those companies on daily basis, it was natural for me to make small collaboration to show you how compatible they are with each other.
Most brands understand that great product photography is essential. According to Justuno (2019), 93% of consumers consider visual content to be the key factor in a purchasing decision. Every business has got their own style how to present their image to the public. Mine style would not always match theirs, but it could happen than after they see the completed work, they could re-think the whole brand feeling idea.
There are moments when the scenery is so perfect it is enough to hold the camera and take a shoot. Unfortunately, most of the time we need to add a little bit more magic to be able to create a photo that will make others hungry.
Let me present you steps I follow when organising food photoshoots:
1. Find the best spot for your shooting. Remember, somewhere close to natural light will be the best. Natural light will give you softer, more natural highlights and shadows.
By using artificial light, you can make beautiful food photography possible at any time of day and in any conditions. It is consistent, predictable, and always there for you even if it is dark outside.
2. Think about background and a base. If you are lucky, your walls can work perfectly as a background and your kitchen top or table as a base. My house is during refurbishment and I must improvise at this moment with backdrops I bought, or which were made at home. A plain coloured or blurred background will draw your eye to the food.
3. Props. Every additional item of the photo is important. Every spoon, napkin, flower, everything is playing special role. Make sure you have the photo in your head long before you take it. Draw a sketch, this could be something to help you organise yourself. There are moments that, the props you had in mind from the beginning will not work as you were thinking. It is good to have alternative. Have to different cups, or one cup and one bowl, there are many possibilities.
4. Watch for the glare of lights on the subjects you are going to photograph. Just by tweaking a little the source of light, you can make a such a difference to your photo.
5. Choose prop colours that complement the food. Examples of complementary colour combinations: red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple, yellow-green and red-purple, red-orange and blue-green. Put things close to each other and try to see if they are working together or clash. By choosing props, colours, type of food, light, you are creating atmosphere. Your photos can be playful, romantic, fresh, moody, worm, cold and so many more.
6. Texture is taking your photo to the next level. Try to include three different texture in your scene. Cutlery, herbs, napkins, there are endless possibilities. Sometimes placing some of the ingredients which are included in your dish would be enough. Step back and take a look if everything is how you imagined. Take a look at your set up from few different angles.
7. Camera and lens. Make sure battery is charged, lens is clean. Check your settings, ISO, F stop, white balance. Your food composition may be perfect, but your camera settings can ruin everything. Take a shot.
PRACTICE!!! Every set up is going to be better and you will feel more natural. Take time, do not rush, even the Rome was not built in one night.
What to do when all movies and series on Netflix have been watched, sometimes even twice? We cannot go out, except for food shopping and exercising, No one can visit us. This is a good time to find yourself a new hobby. Reading books can be a good idea, but they would keep you on sofa or in be even more. What about cooking? Why not? Everyone likes to eat. But even you are not big fun of preparing your own meal, you can try to practice food photography and trust me you do no not need much to start. There is lots of groups on Facebook and Instagram which always sharing a few tips about how to photograph your meal better.
The good project to start.
I am always photographing what I can eat after photo shooting. I am against food waste, sometimes even I know I would not enjoy what is on my plate, then probably one of my boys would. If you are home alone, you can always pass the plate to your neighbour, just remember about social distancing.
To start, keep it simple. Anything you use in the kitchen can be photographed e.g., eggs, bread, apple, banana, tomatoes, flour, garlic. List is endless.
Food nicely accompaniment with a drink, cup of coffee or tea is always a great idea. Adding milk, sugar or honey to the scene will upscale the challenge. You can practice how to work with a shutter speed button when purring them into your drink or simply keep them on the table as addition to the scene.
The main idea is to START. Put banana on yellow paper and practice. Look at your “model” from different angle. Take as many photos as you wish. You can be incredibly surprised with results.
Light
If you are not a photographer, you will not have an artificial light at home, and this is perfectly fine. Natural light works the best. If you are a photographer, you can try both lights and you can even join them both. I am big fun of natural light but sometimes I must use additional light to present the product the way I want. At this moment I am using the cheapest lights I could find on Amazon, but my dream is to buy one day a Rotolight NEO 2. Make sure the house lights are turned off. When you are practicing your photography with both lightings make sure they both coming from the same direction. The best idea is to place your food side to the window or keep the window on the back. By doing this your food will keep natural texture and the light will also present shadows which can create a natural contrast and depth and will add drama and emotions.
Camera
Whatever camera you are familiar with will work perfectly. My best friend name is Nikon D750 with 50 0r 85 mm lenses, but his cousin Nikon D3300 doing great photos as well. Do not worry if the only camera you have got is your phone one, you can play with settings on the PRO mode as well.
Let me know how is going? If you have questions, I would be more than happy to help.
Next time I will show you how to build the scenery, from empty kitchen space to exciting looking cup of smoothie.
Time is passing by, but many things are staying the same. I had a nice conversation few days back with my friend about quality of photos food places are posting on social medias. He made a comment that it was not important what quality were the photos, important was that the places were doing something to maintain their visibility online.
Do you agree?
Statista.com informs, that social networking sites were estimated to have 3.6 billion users and this figure is growing. This connects to grow of the mobile devices usage and changes are happening to our lifestyle. The site also states, that on average, internet users were spending 144 minutes per day on social media and messaging apps.
The records show, that Facebook was the first social network with 1 billion monthly active user mark and was ranked the most popular social network worldwide. The next social media which includes photo and video sharing is Instagram. This numbers prompts brands and marketing companies all over the world to use screen space to promote products and services via social media.
31.1% of a global Instagram audience is in age group between 25 and 34 years. People are using the platform mostly to get to see what they friends and family members were up to.
According to the statistics, the average expenditure per person per week on food and drink not cooked at home in UK in 2018/19 was £14.48.
The hashtag #food has got 424 million posts on Instagram in the moment I started this article.
Six out of Top Nine 2020 on my Business Instagram are related to food. We are breathing air, but to exist, to be healthy we need food and drinks.
And this is a great news for all the places which are serving food and drinks, but you need to adjust accordingly to the needs.
With such a big audience and concurrency on the market, you must concentrate on making the best first impression. Photos can sell your product in the first second the customer will look at it, but it can also make them quickly swap to the next one.
You can tell a great story just by posting one photo. Make sure the photo reflects what your place (coffee, bar, restaurant) represents, build the story behind your brand, appeal to the emotions of the people you want to be your customers. Make them feel like home.
Build the trust. By posting stock photos, you are not going to be interesting, show your real face. Make sure that, when people would enter your place and purchase the food or drink, they would feel like photos they saw came to life and everything is so perfect. Moments like this build bonds between you, your product and customers. They will be assured you deliver what you promise. The trust and lasting impression are going to grow from this moment.
Invest in your future, in future of your restaurant. Great photos are must. Choose the best dishes from your menu and present the best you can. Remember about composition. Correct angle, right plate, sides. Make sure you focus customer eye on what you want to draw attention to. The good lighting will definitely help to make everyone mouths water. Please, do not use filters. Show the real beauty of your art. Cheese sandwich can be a Quinn if is presented right.
You do not need to be a professional to take a right photo, you also do not have to invest in professional camera, simply focus on above tips. However, professional photographers not only will bring your ideas to life, but they will also make other suggestions and do the whole hard work for you.
What are your thoughts? I would love to hear from you.
Pregnancy is such a special and exciting time of our life. Every couple are dealing with it on their own way.
This time is a full of joy and long wait for our life to be changed forever.
I am receiving several questions about Maternity Photos, let me answer some of them over here.
What week should I do maternity photos?
Maternity portrait sessions are usually done between 28 and 36 weeks of pregnancy, because the belly has got nice and round shape, but I believe it is great idea to start them on the very beginning. You will than capture the progress of the belly grow, can you imagine showing this to your daughter or son when they will be older? Great 18th Birthday present.
2. How should I dress for a maternity photo shoot?
My answer is always “Comfortable”. It is great to bring at least two outfits to the session. One could be a dress and second, something more casual.
Maxi Dresses are extremely popular now. Floor length maxi dress is very flattering on pregnant mom, but wearing a tight, fitted dress will show mum’s all beautiful curves which is stunning.
Sometimes instead of dress moms wear dad’s shirts or t-shirts. I love this idea, it is showing connection between two parents. Try it.
As we mentioned dad, remember not to match dad’s outfit too much, contrast is more than needed. Try to google complementary colours and see which are working together well. Take dad and your cloths out and lay them next to each other, see what composition you like the most. I would recommend sending the photos with your choices to your photographer, to ask for second opinion.
3. Are maternity photo shoots worth it?
By having a maternity photos taken you will be able to give your child part of they life journey, which they would never could see by themselves. They will also be able to experience how excited you have been to meet them to the world. Pregnancy is also part of your life which not last forever and those pictures will allow you to look back on for many years.
I am a big foodie person. I love to cook, bake and fry, but it is very important for me to present food so nice that before you try it your mouth would water and you would beg me to set up the table to begin consumption.
I am expecting all the same when I go out for a meal, with no exceptions. But how do I decide where I eat? I believe, like most of you, I to listen my friends recommendations and also I research places myself. I am checking food places ratings on Google and go to the social media to see how their food is presented. I would not visit 5* rating place if I cannot see clear and appealing photos. I today’s post I would like to present you with two steps how to improve the quality of food and drinks photos on your social medias.
What do I need for food photography?
DSLR camera with 50 mm lens would be your best option but many new mobile phones have got great parameters and they can be use for a quick shoot.
Light, the most important part of photography. Food presents itself nicely with natural light, use it as much as possible. Place your plate or cup of coffee by the window, but try to avoid direct sunlight, as the photo can be overexposed. You would not have to post process or even nothing at all. I personally do not recommend using filters with food photography postproduction. Natural looking food sell itself the best.
2. How do you set up for food photography?
Make sure that the table or the surface you will place your food for shooting is clean, without streaks, camera will catch everything. Use napkins, cutlery, salt, pepper and menu to fulfil empty spaces. Play around with your settings until you are happy with them.
Make sure that the photos you are taking are in focus or at least the part which you want the viewer to concentrate on. If they are not, check if the lens is clean, dirty glass can cause the problem.
Shoot from few different angles. You can be surprised how different food looks from the top compare to the side.
Enjoy your creation time.
Last Saturday I visited “Quarters Coffee Newport” for a first time for brunch. This place is perfect for taking food photography. Exceptionally light, big glass windows, white walls it is also clean and specious enough. The meal and drinks were presented perfectly, simply ready to be photographed and consume straight after. Everything was fresh looking and made.
If you agree with me, this is your first step to success.
If somehow you still wish someone would come over to your place and help you set up and direct you how to take photos or simply will organise session for you I would be more then happy to be this person. Simply complete the contact form on the last page and I will assist you.
Three weeks ago, MKS Photography opened the door to the public. This was the best week for me. I met so many new people and made so many amazing photos, but more important I made people happy. The one session was most memorable for me. Why? Let me tell you all about it.
After I post information on social media, that I was going to open the studio, my beloved neighbour commented with congratulation. This was so nice of her. As I care about our community so much, I appreciated her words very much. Not long after that she texted me personally and asked: “Can you create an image where it’s the same person in pic but bk to bk but 2 diff outfits? (If that makes any sense lol xx”. I said, I have never done anything like this before, but I would love to try it. I also asked who this should be for. My neighbour answer made me cry: “Jamee Leigh, she missed her prom and I have her dress no one has seen its lush but I would love a shoot for memories and as a twist as this is her final year. The back to back photo of her in her prom dress looking all beautiful and girly and other side her in her full army gear x”. This made me so excited but also so scared at the same time. I knew, I needed to learn new skill, but I also knew that this would be so much fun, and I would also make someone so, so happy. I did not know how, but I knew I had to at least try to complete this task.
We sat up an appointment and I started to study the techniques how to merge two photos in Photoshop. There are so many ways, I could never imagine. I chose safe way, the same background. I knew, if I wanted to succeed, I needed to play safe.
We met as agreed, they had brought two outfits and the shooting began. We all had so much fun, but during the session I had also to remember about the final task. As I had so many photos from other days, to process the one for my neighbour needed more time. Mum and daughter had to wait for their final photos a little bit longer. But was it worth it? I hope so. First, I processed all the poses we managed to complete on the day and asked them to choose the one which they would like to unite. I received the choices and started my work.
After few days, I sent my neighbour a message and told her I had a surprise for her. I sent her the merged photo.
She was over the moon.
Few minutes after I texted her: “I also have done one of two which were my favourites” and sent her the other merged image.
She could not be more happy and me, as I knew I could deliver what the customer asked me for and even more.
I am so glad she took the risk and believed in me, she trusted I could do what she asked me for, and I am ever so grateful!
The couple reached out to you and asked you to be their wedding photographer. Whoop, whoop, your dream came true, so much excitement, you are going to expand your portfolio and maybe the Wedding Photography is going to be your favourite subject. Unfortunately, you cannot just show up, start to take random photos, pack your camera to the bag and go back home, this day is all about Bride and Groom. As one of the most important days in any person’s life, it is essential to nail a wedding session the first time around, there are no do-overs, and a bad photos can be potentially disastrous for your future client relations. It is your job to make sure they will have an amazing wedding photos to look at in years’ time and to show them to their kids and grandkids in the future. You must come prepared. Even you think you will remember what photos you should take it is a good idea to simply bring with you a ‘Wedding Day Photography List’ to quickly check it between the shoots. That way, you’ll avoid a trap that many couples fall into where, six months after the wedding, they find themselves thinking: “I wish I had a picture of me and my Aunty Amanda”.
How to work with a Wedding Day Photography List’?
I would not suggest coming over to the wedding, take the list out from your pocket and start to decide which photos to take. Take time at home before the final date and mark those which you know you cannot miss. You may also discuss which photos would be of couple biggest interest during your conversation with them before their wedding day. If there’s anything you’ve or your duo envisioned, then it’s important to communicate that.
To make things even easier, I’ve made a sample free checklist for you to copy!
DETAILS Invitation, program, special signs, & gifts Wedding rings Wedding dresses/suits Outfit accessories like shoes, cuff links, or jewellery – RINGS!!!! Bouquet, corsages, boutonnieres
GETTING READY Bride(s) and bridesmaids getting their hair and makeup done Wedding party having fun Mother and bride/groom portraits Father and bride/groom portraits Family shots
PRE-CEREMONY Couple alone for your first look Bride(s) and bridesmaids/flower girls Groom(s) and groomsmen/ring bearer
CEREMONY Venue shots including ceremony site, flowers, interior, and exterior details Groom and groomsmen waiting inside the venue Guests Bridal party entrance Bride(s) walking down the aisle Groom’s reaction Father/mother giving the bride away Exchanging of vows Exchanging the rings The first kiss as a married couple and the moment after Signing the marriage certificate The recessional (couple walking back up the aisle)
GROUP PORTRAITS Couple with bridesmaids/groomsmen Couple with the entire wedding party Bride(s) with bridesmaids/maid of honour Groom(s) and groomsmen/best man Couple with any children Couple with each set of parents Couple with both sets of parents Couple with siblings Couple with close family members
RECEPTION Details and room décor shots, including table settings, place cards, centrepieces, etc. Wedding cake detail shots Grand entrance Toasts and speeches Cake cutting The first dance Bride(s) dancing with father/groom(s) dancing with mother Couple mingling with guests Guests dancing Musicians, singers, DJ Grand exit
It’s important to realise that the ‘Wedding Photography List’ is only a guideline. Everyone’s wedding day runs differently, you are going to end up with slightly different photos than what you imagine. But please do not limit yourself to the list, take lots of photos in between, capture the beauty of what makes the wedding day unique.
Today is an especially important day for me. This day would not happen if I would not have your support. Today is the first time when I open the MKS Photography Studio door to the public. I was waiting an exceedingly long time for this moment. My dream was to give people the option to be able to have session outdoor, in their premises or come to the studio where they would feel comfortable and safe. Sometimes clients simply do not want to pose in public or weather is not as they wished for, but they still need photos. This studio is giving them a choice. I am offering hours which would accommodate every person. You would not have to take a day off from work to book your slot. The latest place is possible to be occupied at 9PM!!! I am also happy to accommodate you during the weekends. All spaces must be pre – booked and 25% deposit paid.
I also am happy to rent the Studio. If you have not got your own space, but you wish to practice, provide your session or training, simply give me a shout.
This Studio can be rent not only by the photographers, if you need a space to provide a small meeting, quiet space to work from I will provide you with cup of tea or coffee and slice of cake.
One space and so many possibilities. I am incredibly lucky I have this spare room with separate entrance right at my house and I am happy to share it with you.
Today I also wrote my first blog post. This blog is my place where I am not only going to share my photography journey with you, I also hope to inspire at least one of you to pick up the camera and immortalise world around.
To write blog posts will not be easy for me. My brain works on numbers and camera settings, also my first language is Polish. In my texts you are going to pick up grammatical mistakes, I would probably use “fill” instead of “feel” sometimes and I am apologising for this upfront. I hope that picking may failings would not be the only fun you would have during your reading and I would be able to present you some interesting photography ideas.
MKS Photography 