Popular Photography - February 2015 USA

A TYPOLOGY OF SURFBOARD FINS
22
SHAREYOUR BEST PHOTOS THIS MONTH
CONVERSATION, INSPIRATION, CONTESTS, AND YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
27
PHOTO CHALLENGE
SWEET
SHOT
A photographer collaborates
with his wife to take the cake
MANOJ NARAYANAN credits his wife, Viji
H. Iyer, as the driving force behind this
month’s winning plated food photo. The
East Windsor, New Jersey, couple runs
a food blog (handfulofrecipes.com) together—she
makes and styles the food;
he photographs it. The “vision for food
pictures are mostly Viji’s—we wanted
this photo to look dark and rich,” Narayanan
says.
To emphasize the tones of the cake,
Narayanan shot it against a slate floor
using three bracketed exposures (+1,
0, –1 EV) on the Cloudy Day white balance
setting. He extended a tripod to its
maximum height and tethered his camera
to a laptop so he could check the
frame as he shot. Once the test images
looked good, Iyer carefully arranged the
ingredient around the cake and placed
a dried rose in the center.
Narayanan finished by tone mapping
Manoj
Narayanan
used a Canon
EOS 7D with
a 70–200mm
f/2.8L Canon
EF IS II USM
lens; 1/100
sec at f/8,
ISO 400 with
bracketed
exposures of
+1, 0, –1 EV.
in Photomatix Pro 4.2.3
and applying Matt
Kloskowski’s “Ultimate
Fighter” preset
in Adobe Photoshop
Lightroom 5.7, where
he also adjusted tone,
boosted clarity, and
lowered the vibrance
and saturation settings.
—Jeanette D. Moses
MANOJ NARAYANAN
POPPHOTO.COM
In “A Dog’s Life” (page
52), pet photographer
Gary Parker shares his
secrets for expressive canine portraits. Send us
your best pooch picture by February 28 and you
could win $100 and your story here. Read the
rules and enter at PopPhoto.com/contests.
FEBRUARY 2015 POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY 21