Tracy is a twenty-something
red-headed lady from the Philippines who lives for photography, and takes photos for a living.
This blog's main content focuses on photography and food, the same way this is a mix of her work and bits of her personal life — the two often occur simultaneously.
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All content found in this website http://tracymonsod.com, photos or otherwise, are ©Tracy Monsod unless otherwise specified. Stealing is bad!etc.


I love Christmas! It’s one of the occasions that I allow myself to indulge in girlier get ups. As I’m an advocate of the little red dress much more than the little black dress, Christmas is the perfect time to whip them out and prance around in my heeled shoes.

I’m not one to accessorize much, either, but my latest arm/finger candy from Kiks are pretty and elegant enough for the holidays. Not to mention the pretty case from Tricia, too. Yay!

I got this dress a few days ago from Apartment 8, a local clothing brand, as a Christmas present to myself! I think I have a new favorite local brand.
I paid their store in Greenhills a visit and found this little gem. I was actually supposed to get a fancier dress, but I figured I could wear this out more often given how simple it is. The fabric is all sorts of lovely, and I absolutely adore how the skirt falls! I’m not exactly gifted with child-bearing hips, so the flared out skirt kind of creates the illusion that I do. Somehow.
The mesh parts of the dress are pretty cool! I feel they’re nice and subtle, but attractive enough that I don’t really need to wear a necklace, haha. Plus the part around the waist also removed the need for a belt to break monotony in the dress! Yay! Lazy people who prefer to put on as few garments/accessories as possible, unite!

Curled my hair for Christmas Eve Mass + festivities with my cousins! Merry Christmas everyone! :)
I’ve been lazy with editing and uploading my photos from travel and leisure, and I apologize! To make up for it, here’s a blog post with photos from my most recent trip with my friends to West Grove in Sta. Rosa, Laguna. It was a fun-filled and very memorable trip, to say the least!

Breakfast at Starbucks in Solenad 2! Caramel Belgian waffle + Grande iced Vanilla Latte!
Kiks & Myself. Hahaha!

Krissy & Andrew

Tep & Addie

Kim deserves a special photo! I have so many pretty pictures of her from this trip!

Finally, a decent photo of le boyfriend! <3

I’ve been very into looloo lately! Have you downloaded it onto your iPhone yet?

Pretty Krissy :)

One of my favorite couples ever, hee

Pizza to be taken out for our lunch!

iDevices everywhere!

Tricia’s monster of a camera, downplayed by her baby of a lens. Aah, one day.

Good morning, Nuvali!

Lunch time!

Poolside Kiks

Tricia’s official photographer, ohohoho~

Girlies! <3

Another of Kim! She is such a delight to photograph. <3






We exchanged gifts!

Kim, you are so effortlessly pretty <3

My macho boyfriend, haha!

Suddenly, me

Double rainbow at the end of the day!! Such a lucky group of friends, we are. :)

More of pretty Kim

Photo of the boys, haha!

Oh hai, Trin!

Krissy & I had matching Baby-G watches!

Goes with my white glasses! And hey, Tricia did our eye makeup! Heehee~

‘Twas a beautiful day with beautiful people. We should do this more often.
I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends. <3 Merry Christmas, you guys, here’s to another year ahead!

It’s been years since I first picked up a copy of Yummy magazine and flipped through its glossy pages, admiring all the pretty food photos. This was a time when eventually taking photos of food was the farthest thing from my mind, and I was just happy to be a viewer of great food photos.
It wasn’t until just two years ago that I started taking photos of food professionally, and my favorite magazine became more than just a collection of great pictures — it became a source of inspiration, and I guess aspiration, as I wanted to be part of it, one way or another!

Opportunity didn’t come a-knocking, so I decided to extend an invitation and knock it did! And that is our lesson for today, boys and girls. Things don’t happen just because you want them to — you have to make them happen.
And so I have unlocked an achievement! Crossed something off my bucket list! Quite thankful for a vast number of things leading to this. :)
It was fun shooting for Yummy! I have a few more photos coming soon in the next issue, and I’m quite excited! I’m hoping I get to do this more often. :)
I know I haven’t been posting as much as I used to, and I apologize profusely! To make up for it, here is a photo from the Troy & Jessica prenup/engagement shoot. I know it’s been more than a week since they got married, but I still can’t get over how wonderful everything was. :)
Anyway, the reason for my lack of activity is that I’ve been busy with a lot of things as of late. I’ve been shooting a lot lately — had another engagement shoot just last Sunday (pictures hopefully soon!), Tender Blender clients, freelance photography work (I’ll let you in on this next month!), and of course shooting for myself.
Thank goodness for my Favorite Food Friday project, as I have at least one post every week! I’m planning on introducing a new twist for my project, but we’ll see if I can actually push through with it.
And speaking of projects, do follow our Tender Blender blog if you aren’t yet! We started a new weekly project as well, called Food for Thought. Basically, we post some tips and tricks for food photography, whether with a camera or even with a small mobile device! If that tickles your fancy, then we invite you to check it out! We’re only on our first entry, but a new one will be posted tomorrow morning! Looks like this is going to be a Thursday thing. :)
Anyhow, I can’t wait to share what I’ve been up to! Soon, I promise. If I’m not eaten up by work.
In the past couple of weeks or so, I stumbled upon a good piece of advice from photographer Zack Arias. The piece of advice being to tape your screen so you don’t see what you’re shooting. Fortunately, my camera is equipped with a swivel-screen, so all I have to do is keep it closed.

I’ve been trying to revert back to my film photography days sans the film, and shooting without checking what my shot looks like. I feel as I’ve been “cheating” by shooting RAW all the time and thinking “It’s too dark. Meh, I can just fix that in post, I’m on RAW.”
So now, I’m back to shooting JPEG when I shoot leisurely. I’m also relearning to be fully dependent on my in-camera light meter. I figured, what was the point of learning to shoot with a fully manual film camera in my first few years into photography if I don’t apply it today?

This little exercise has been doing a lot of good for me lately! Apart from the technical stuff, it’s saving me a lot of space on my laptop. Those RAW photos are a killer, so the smaller file size for these JPEGs is a life-saver.
I feel a little ashamed of myself for being too dependent on technology that I put less thought into the technical aspect of things when it comes to taking pictures.

Of course, I still do some post-processing to achieve the certain look I have for all my photos. But my post-processing process has been cut almost in half because I no longer have to adjust some of the settings on the RAW images. Yay!
While I would love to shoot with an actual film camera again, that’s just something my current funds will not allow. And as much as I would like to replicate the whole film experience with my DSLR by printing out my favorite photos…that’s also part of what my current funds will not allow. I have a lot of other more important things to pay for, so prints will just have to wait.