Optometrist by day, food photographer by.. anytime!
Give it up for Ryan aka Squarepad, best known for his mouthwatering food photography on his social media accounts.
To those who are feeling hungry right now, do read with caution!
Hello Ryan! Do introduce yourself to our readers.
Things you see in my social media, my online persona has no relevance to my daytime job. I graduated with Bachelor of Optometry (Hons) and I am currently working as an optometrist; an eye care practitioner who is trained to examine eyes to detect any ocular anomalies at a private eye center.
I usually spend my day off exploring cafes in town and also learning to see things in a different perspective as I shoot. Honestly, I don’t really see myself as a food photographer or a food explorer but rather someone who constantly strive to create the best content for my own Instagram account which most of you addresses it as “Squarepad”. I can be extremely particular and fussy on how all my photos are prearranged; that explained my Instagram’s theme where black shots are usually a flatlay & portrait and white shots are usually interior or picture of food from a frontal view.
Based on your Instagram feed, you have lots of photos of food! When did you first discover your passion for food photography?
I guess it started with the hype of café hopping. I remembered the first café I visited was Depature Lounge in Damansara Uptown where I can fully customize my big breakfast to my own liking! Obviously, back then the café trend is not popular yet and people tend to stare at me when I bring my food/coffee to somewhere with a better lighting. Frankly, I was a little discouraged by how people think of me last time but I guess when you do it with a group of people, you just don’t care *laugh*. The way I shoot now and 6 years ago are completely different. I guess my shooting perspective changed overtime as I learn more about photography.
How would you describe yourself in 1 word?
Passionate.
Share with us the best highlight of your life as a food photographer!
In my opinion, it’s probably the accomplishment of conducting 2 photography workshop (looking into the third one by May). Also, I love the fact that I’m able to interact with the people who have been following my journey of café hopping by sharing about my experience and ways to create stunning pictures.
We noticed you use #coffeemeetbojio in all your posts. Whats the meaning behind it?
It’s actually nothing special with the hashtag #coffeemeetbojio. It’s just something I created 3 years ago with an intention to share more about my café hopping journey. This hashtag was supposed to be my personal use only but people started using it for their own social media posting, so I just let it be and now there are 10,600 posts! The hashtag #coffeemeetbojio actually means “go café never ajak lah?”. Haha!
You’ve recently hosted a workshop – share with us the creative process of this big idea!
I have already conducted 2 workshops where I taught the participants about the basics of photography, photo editing and also shared about my café hopping experience. The aim of this workshop is to inspire, share, and to guide those who are interested to improve their café hopping experience by taking decent pictures of food.
Obviously, I started with zero knowledge conducting my first workshop but I tried it anyway because it’s my passion to teach and shoot. By the end of my first workshop, I sat down with my team and discussed about ways to improve the flow for my second workshop. We had the same conclusion on how our next workshop should be conducted and we decided to run it on our second workshop, which was held at a café called “Tree 15” located at Bandar Sri Damansara. The flow was much smoother and we knew we did the right thing. My team and I enjoyed a lot from the process of teaching to shooting where we taught the participants about ways to create stunning hipster shots that they usually see in our Instagram posts which they get to be more hands on by themselves to create the image on their own.
The teaching process can be challenging because some of the participants have zero knowledge in photography as they are from different professions. The most satisfying moment of this workshop is seeing them getting the shot I taught and they actually didn’t believe that they could shoot like how I shoot. Like I always emphasize during the workshop, things we see with our eyes are completely different from things we see from a phone with camera mode on (don’t think, just shoot and evaluate the shots later). They finally understand what I meant in the end of the workshop. I guess it’s the same theory in life where we are often too quick to judge something before even trying it. I hope I can continue to contribute to the society by sharing what I know and love to do!
As an optometrist, what is a typical day in your life?
My day starts as early as 7.30am where I have to get up early from bed to get myself ready to work at 8.30am. My workplace is never a quiet center where it’s usually crowded with patients coming for their eyes treatment everyday. Despite stated clearly that our center closes at 5.30pm, sometimes I could only go home at around 7pm due to unforeseen circumstances. I usually have my simple dinner at home and I spend my time at night by listening to songs & watching tutorials about photo editing on YouTube. The cycle repeats 6 days in a week (yeah, I work on weekends too).
We noticed that your feed is checkered in black and white! How much time do you spend editing/shooting your photos?
I’m so worried that part of the interview involves question like this *alamak*. I guess I can’t avoid this question now since this is quite a direct question! *laughs*
This is my third year of going into a minimal, black & white theme. Honestly, it’s not easy to maintain my Instagram feed. My friends tells me that they feel very stressed out if they were to manage my account because they can never be consistent with a theme like mine. In order to maintain my feed, I’m always on the lookout for white cafes and cafes that I can pull off stunning flatlays. The process of shooting and editing are never an issue to me, but prearranging them accordingly to my theme is really a “painful” process where it can take up to days and maybe weeks just so that I can say “looks fine” now. It requires a huge amount of commitment to manage my account and sometimes I do feel like giving up. *lol*.
Name 3 of your favourite photography essentials that you can’t live without!
My camera, phone and my Macbook.
Since you’re into café hopping, any favourite Instaworthy cafes?
As for now it has to be:-
- Kopenhagen Coffee at Mont kiara, for stunning white & minimal shots
- VCR at Jalan Galloway, for stunning light and shadow chasing shot
- Botanica + Co at Bangsar Nexus South, for amazing interior concept and amazing food
- Someplace Beautiful at Sentul D7, for pretty tiles and interior
- The Glass House at Metropolitan Square, for stunning light chasing and minimal white framing.
Do you have any food photography idols?
Samantha Lee the food artist; I’m always impressed with all her crazy ideas to decorate her food in a creative way.
Any life mottos?
Always be at your best when you are doing something and strive for perfection!
Who is your all-time inspiration in life?
It has to be “Jack Ma” the founder of Alibaba Group. There are several quotes from him that I really like:-
- “If you’ve never tried how will you ever know if there’s any chance?”
This is why I initiated my first photography workshop despite having zero experience in it! - “Once in your life, try something, work hard at something and try to change because nothing bad can happen,”
This is why I’m constantly looking for ways to improve my workshop’s content to create a better learning experience for all the participants.
What is the perfect weekend for you?
Where I get to spend my days with my loved one or friends by just sitting down in a cafe chit chatting over common interesting topic about photography, catching up with them about their life and lastly, snapping photos of coffee/food in all possible angles. *laugh*
Your Instagram feed is on point! What editing apps & camera do you use?
I use mainly iPhone for all my shots and I just recently bought a camera (Fujifilm XT 1) to create some bokehlicious shots. The applications I used mostly are VSCO (applying filters), fine tuning my edit using (Snapseed) and adjusting alignment using (SKRWT).
Tell us what makes you smile the most? ☺
When I nail the shot that I want, good company and of course good food!
Where do you see yourself in the future?
I don’t really plan ahead for future because life can be very uncertain. One baby step at a time and always be at your best – I am sure that I will be at somewhere just fine or maybe, even better.
To all foodies out there, you know you gotta follow Squarepad at:
Check out other food Instagrammers HERE! 🙂