How do our food experts cook and eat? This week, food photographer and amateur home-cook Pravin takes our Q&A!  

How did you stumble upon food photography? 
- One of my closest friends got hired to shoot the menu of a well-known Japanese restaurant and pretty much ate free sushi for a week! Needless to say, I was sold on the idea. 

Your favourite part about it?
-  Meeting the hardworking businessmen and businesswomen behind some of my favourite brands. Never gets old. Neither does all the free food!

Which came first; cooking or food photography? 

- Definitely home-cooking. I am fortunate enough to come from a family where literally everyone cooks (at this point, I think my dogs could whip up a mean five-course meal if you let them). Photography was something I wanted to get into, but cooking was something that happened naturally.

Do you have a habit when you are cooking?
- Playing music before I start cooking is an absolute must.  

Your favourite childhood meal?
-  I don’t think it’s limited to my childhood! From pretty much the first time I ate it, my ammi’s chocolate biscuit pudding recipe has been my favourite!  

Can you make a fancy meal with Rs. 500?  

- Of course! I would probably go for a cacio e peppe followed by a nicely plated dessert, maybe something with vanilla ice cream, kithulpani and a couple of crushed cashew nuts. (Might be pushing 500 with the dessert, but then again, it’s dessert!)

Light, colour, composition, set up – you can only have one in a shoot; which one would you pick? 

-  Light! Photography is nothing without light. Creative lighting can fix a lot of problems, but nothing can fix bad lighting.

It’s your last day on earth, where are you?
- At home with my closest friends: Eating whatever they want (they never let me decide).

The most exotic food you’ve eaten? 
- A candied scorpion from North Carolina. I still don’t know what I was thinking with that one.

Dis-invent a food?
- Candied. Scorpions.

Your most challenging shoot? 
- The first shoot I ever did, for one of my friends. The pressure mixed with absolutely no experience resulted in me taking around 15 pictures over the course of seven hours. Do not recommend.

Your favourite odd food pairing?
- Plain cornflakes and parippu is a healthier, almost-as-tasty version of parippu and papadam. I have fought people over this and will continue to do so until I die.

A dish you’d love to relive for the first time?
- A huge pistachio ice cream cone I had in Australia with my cousin and our families. Mind-blowingly delicious. My life will not be complete until I get my hands on that magical thing of beauty again.

You eat with your eyes first – agree or disagree? 

- 100% agree – but, some of the ugliest food I’ve seen has been some of the yummiest I’ve eaten!

What would you do if you knew you could not fail at it? 
- I would become a high-earning content creator with content around food, mental health, and ending animal cruelty.