When my friends threw out the idea for the progressive party we had a few weeks ago, I immediately thought that it would be a fun event to photograph and post about. Now, event photos aren’t really my thing normally. People move around and get self-concious when you point a camera at them. Food, well, it just sits there. But I decided to give it a shot with that party. I was pleased with the post and photos but I have to say, I’ve been stunned by the response I’ve recieved.

(more…)

Here’s another reader question from the mail bag.. one I get quite frequently.

I enjoy both food and travel and love flicking through cook books and magazines. Your photos are exactly the kind of photography I could look at for hours!!

Do you have any advice as to how I could build up a good portfolio and gain some experience? I’m doing an intensive course in photography but don’t know much about how I could go about creating a specific portfolio.

My main piece of advise is just to practice, practice, practice. Take your camera with you everywhere and try to take the kinds of photos that you like to look at. If you are more interested in travel, start looking at your own city as a tourist might… imagine the kind of article you’d want to photograph for. If you are more interested in food, start cooking & shooting… or just buy easily transportable stuff (bakeries or candy shops are best) and shoot it at home. (notice I didn’t say start shooting in restaurants… you’ll be at a disadvantage because you can’t control the lighting).

Once you are ready, start finding folks to give you feedback on your work. Flickr is a great place for this… look for groups that specialize in food & travel and offer critiques. And, don’t be afraid to add a note on your description asking for feedback. you’ll get a lot that isn’t very helpful (ie, the “great shot” type stuff which makes you feel good,

I’ve been meaning to start a regular post series featuring some of the emails I get with questions about photography and styling, and what better way to kick it off with a question that I know comes up all the time with folks just getting started into some more advanced digital imaging. A reader writes:

Dear Lara,

I’m really confused about which image editing software to buy. I’m planning to go in for the Canon 40D. I heard you talk about the phase one capture pro on your site. Maybe I will look at it as an option in the future as I don’t want to suffer from information overload!

I need to edit images for publishing in websites and magazines/newspapers. Should I go in for the Photoshop CS3 or CS3 extended? What are your thoughts on the Adobe Lightroom?

I have heard that Mac is better for photographers so i’m switching over to Mac after years of PC use.

Thanks for being helpful.

First, you’ll need to decide what you want to do with editing your photos. Software like Adobe Lightroom and Capture One apply edits to the entire photo, and are great for adjusting things like the exposure or the color for an entire image, working with Raw files, or in the case of LIghtroom, helping you keep all of your images organized, kind of like a beefed up iPhoto. I don’t use Lightroom (yet)… I tried a beta copy quite a while ago and with the number of photos that I