MANILA, Philippines?Floodwaters entered my home for the first time and they reached the library at the ground floor. While some books were damaged, the photographs in albums, our family?s history, are almost all gone. I?m the keeper of most of those. Surprisingly, some of the black and white (now sepia) pictures of my parents were salvaged, but my mother?s handwritten captions were mostly erased. The colored photographs had swirls of color instead of faces.

Because my work area is on the second level, many of my food and travel photos are intact. Those, of course, were done before the digital age, when negatives and printouts were what you kept. And so looking at those, I remembered how I took those shots, quite different from how I do those today.

Today, diners casually take out their cameras or their phones and take a picture of their orders. When one young diner did that beside our table, I told my son that she probably has a blog.

By now, restaurants are used to diners clicking away at their orders. And almost instantly, those food shots find their way into the net. Some do know how. Others do not. But taking food shots has certainly become easier to do.

Years ago, I got curious stares from both customers and the restaurant staff. Sometimes, just so I wouldn?t call attention to what I was doing, I made it seem that it was my friend across me I was photographing.

Once, a photographer came to my table and taught me to stand up when shooting the plate. It makes for a better photo, he told me. And he was right. The flash wipes out the image if you?re too near.

It?s funny to talk about the flash today since the sophisticated digital camera doesn?t even have to use that function most of the time.

First digital camera

My first digital camera cost an arm and a leg but it shot great photographs. Maybe it was also because the first time I used it, I was on assignment with a professional photographer and I just used his set-up, lighting and all. Needless to say, the results were great.

I almost swore not to buy another digital camera when mine broke down, was fixed then broke down again. But then the prices became more reasonable and I?m on my third model.

My first time to use a phone camera was when I forgot my regular digital and I had to record my trip to General Santos City in Mindanao. No one taught me how to use the function but it was a breeze going through the motion. When I downloaded the photographs, the quality was better than expected.

When Nokia invited us to a food shoot using the Model 6700 classic, I thought how the culinary coverage had indeed changed. Even a food writing seminar months ago included a lecture on shooting with your phone conducted by Mark Floro in tandem with food styling by his wife, Linda.

We were covering three Greenbelt restaurants, starting at Kai for appetizers and salads, then to Lusso for the main course and ending at Sala Bistro for desserts. The restaurants were chosen from Tatler?s Best Restaurant Guide 2009.

Eating with food writers requires patience because before the food can be eaten, there should be time allotted for the pictures to be taken. My family knows this and sometimes they even remind me that I have to photograph.

So all phones were out that day, ready to record each dish. There was no need for learning time because the keys and functions were familiar to all the writers. The differences were in the angles and the ambience shots.

The gold leaf on the tuna sashimi of Kai was a standout. The chandelier and elaborate silverware at Lusso were great accents and the simple dish of salmon was more elegant because of the long dish with the decorative rim. Sala Bistro?s ice cream parfaits looked better with light streaming through the tall glass.

That day, apart from the exercise we had walking from one restaurant to the next, I didn?t miss my digital camera at all.

E-mail pinoyfood03@yahoo.com.