Hi Sverige

Thank you for your welcoming comments.

However, for the time being I'm just visiting and seeing how the forum has developed and what's new in the world of BIR.

Not sure yet whether I'll be contributing as I'm old school BIR and it looks like things have moved on a tad - but time will tell.

Cheers. 

SnS (smokenspices)

If I may, what defines old school? I'm always keen to learn and all too often what is old is what is new...

Ah, I see. That makes sense. Thank you for clarifying.

I'm genuinely curious. I don't really see the point of this technique. This is just adding a tadka (some say baghar) to your curry base. I'm of the mind that I like to keep my base simple and tailor flavour to a specific profile when I make a curry. If I think a curry needs a finishing tadka I add it to the curry. I always bloom my spices in oil so maybe this is skewing my perspective?

Other than speed in a production kitchen what advantage does this have? Seems to me all this does is push all your curries to taste similar in the end by using a stronger flavoured base.

I take a lot of food pictures and I have a few generally accepted "guidelines" for the genre for anyone who might be interested.

1) Don't use a flash attached to a camera or phone. If you can get focus without using your flash do it. On-camera flash, unless you are really good, is just going to disappoint. I am not good enough so I just don't do it. Off-board flash on the other hand can really be your friend.

2) Light from above is never flattering. You need contrast. Light coming in from the side is flattering. Light from above flattens your image out.

3) Soft light is better than hard light. So a cloudy day is easier to deal with than bright sunshine and the hard shadows that go with it.

4) Don't mix light sources. As an example, mixing sunlight and incandescent light will give your camera problems. Colours get all wonky. That's white balance if you want to read more.

The latest generation of phones are all capable of taking truly amazing images. Taking the time to understand how they work is going to let help you take great pics...

Hope this helps those that are interested in food photography.

Thanks. I'm thinking of tinkering with the idea of mango curry but more savoury. I think I'll maybe do it mango curry two ways.

Happy Christmas!