Curries & Stories: Ukadiche Modak - Ganapati Bappa Morya!

11 September

- No Recipe Post ~

|| ॐ गं गणपतये नमो नम:

श्री सिध्धीविनायक नमो नम:

अष्टविनायक नमो नम: .

गणपती बाप्पा मोरया ||

Presenting some of my favorite Ukadiche Modak shots from this year's Ganesh Chaturthi. This is more a photoblog.

There were many firsts this year in terms of shooting the prasad and Bappa. Last year I remember when the pandemic had hit us and we spent Ganesh Chaturthi in the confines of our home, for the first time I brought out my DSLR to shoot food photos. Before that my DSLR was purely used for travel photography. I had never imagined in my wildest dreams that one day I would start food photography, open an Instagram page and becomes suddenly so passionate about food photography, techniques, editing, composition etc. I started taking food pictures with my phone around the time pandemic hit, because like everyone else I was feeling stressed locked at home and needed some good energy through creativity. It was just a casual hobby until I took the first food photo with my DSLR.

You must be wondering why I didn't use my DSLR to take photos earlier. It was out of sheer laziness. Getting the camera, putting the right lenses, setting up a tripod just to take a food picture didn't sound too enticing to me. Point and shoot was more my genre. Plus I didn't know then that to take one single food photography there would be so many steps right from cooking till the final editing. This all changed when I took the Rawa modak shot on the first day of Ganesh Chaturthi last year. I observed that the photos of food which were taken with the DSLR were much more crisp and with beautiful depth of field. Even minimal editing made the final shot look superb. That was the beginning, after that it had been a long learning curve if 1 year so far and there are so many things I have picked up by observing other food bloggers. I feel proud at times looking at some of my recent compositions, how far I have come from last year in terms of food photography. But then there is so much more to learn, this is just the starting line. And this entire learning process is such an exciting journey. Especially, its magical what you can achieve on the editing board. While the composition needs to be good, but still with a little bit of imagination you can practically create amazing pictures. It fascinates me to no extent. When I got my hands set on Snapseed I was excited. When I learnt Lightroom, it felt exhilarating and finally when I edited the first ever drip shot in Photoshop I felt like a speck in the wide universe. Photoshop is absolutely stunning in itself. I mean don't laugh on me because I am gushing about a software which everyone knows is brilliant. But just feel from the eyes of a person who is beginning on their photoshop journey. Its simply amazing. It is a different world altogether and now I am hooked. Technology has really made magic available at fingertips.

These lovely modaks were made by Pooja Parsewar Bachewar.

I always wanted to create a perfect drip shot. But my tripod had been giving me some pain and I never felt confident about pulling it off. This time I took Ganapati bappa's name and plunged into the idea. The only challenge was, since my tripod was not helping me I had to find someone to hold the spoon with the ghee while I took the shot. The default choice was mom. But to convince her to hold the spoon, make her wait till I got the perfect shot after trying for N number of times, keeping a check on the receding light on a rainy afternoon and wrapping up shooting before my mother's patience ran thin was a humongous task. I think all you photographers who engage their mothers for making action shot would empathize with me right now. It is a tedious job , but at times things do fall in the right place. I do not have any BTS (behind the scene ) for this shoot because of the above mentioned reason. I had to clean up everything before she got ticked off :D. But someday, I promise, some of these days I will try to do a detailed BTS and put it up on my blog. Fingers crossed.