Bikanervala Foods is a leading restaurant chain in India, serving traditional Indian sweets, fast food, snacks and beverages. Shirish Sen have collaborated with them on several photography projects for advertising, in-store graphics and packaging. However, most of the images they had created so far were more or less ‘regular’ food images.

For the Food Boards project, we collaborated with SSG - a New Delhi based design studio - to create images to be used in-store as murals. The aim was to show a range of food (rather than just a single dish) as well as to include human ‘elements' to give a sense of immediacy to the images. The food was styled by Arati Fedane. There was no single point of inspiration, however we drew most of our references for the mood boards from Instagram and preferred a more editorial-style approach to the images.
-Shirish Sen

For my food photography projects, I tend to approach the subject as a classical still-life, working with composition, light and shade, and allowing every element in the frame - the food, flatware, props, backgrounds and colours - to give a sense of place and time which the viewer can’t get from the food alone. Post-production is usually minimal. My approach to liquid (splash) and product photography is more graphic and post-production dependent.
-Shirish Sen

I like working with layouts - either provided by an art director, or something I may have sketched on my own - and prefer to pre-plan every aspect of my images, from how the food or beverage will be prepared, to the kind of lighting, props and colours that will be used. As an amateur, I used to closely observe the works of the Masters - from Rembrandt and Vermeer, to Irving Penn and Edward Weston. Having said that, I could find inspiration in something apparently unrelated, like nature or music. I’ve never restricted myself to observing the work of other photographers, although recently I’ve been finding the seeds for exciting new ideas and inspiration in images shared by amateurs and enthusiasts on social media, particularly Instagram.
-Shirish Sen

For this project, I used what has become my standard gear of choice - a Mamiya RZ67 Pro IID with a 180mm (short barrel) lens and tilt-shift adapter, coupled with a Phase One P45+ digital back and Broncolor Lights.
-Shirish Sen

About Shirish Sen

Shirish Sen was born in New Delhi (India) in 1978. His father was a keen amateur photographer, and his early interest in the art and craft of photography has its roots in observing him experiment with his cameras. His undergraduate major was graphic design, and it was there that he first started paying attention to photography as a medium of expression as well as the technical aspects of the field. Before he knew it, he was increasingly using the camera to execute his ideas, and by the end of his degree course, most of his projects were photographic. From there the transition from serious amateur to professional photographer seemed like a natural evolution. He's currently based in Gurgaon (a suburb of New Delhi) where he's been working as an independent photographer for over a decade. See more of his works on Behance or his website.