Maybe I’m (again :D) posting this in the wrong community, but I think I have a good reason to do it anyway. Because if there’s one thing that dominates every single gallery on my phone and google photos, it’s food photography! 🤩 And not just any food. Colorful bowls, soups that steam like in a TV comercials, crispy veggies, golden oven-baked cabbage, and those little cookies that look like they belong in some fancy artsy café.
So yes, today I’m sharing my old food photos here, in Photography Lovers, because honestly… these pictures are more than recipes. They’re memories of light, color, and patience I had while I was preparing them and a glimpse of a time when I treated my kitchen like a tiny photography studio. I realy hope you’ll enjoy the; both as food and as art.
A few years ago, I went through a health phase that somehow changed the way I looked at food now. I was on something called the Autoimmune Protocol or simply AIP, a special elimination diet meant to calm down your immune system by removing potential triggers. It’s like being on a permanent cooking show challenge called “Make Something Delicious Out of Almost Nothing”. No grains, no dairy, no legumes, no processed food, no coffee (ouch). Basically, you strip your plate bare and start from scratch, cooking with the cleanest, most basic ingredients.At first, it was hard, everything I used to eat was suddenly “forbidden”. But then I found beauty in simplicity. Carrots, spinach, garlic, olive oil, herbs, meat… suddenly they became my palette. I realized that even with restrictions, food could be bright, alive, and deeply comforting. Plus photogenic, cause we all know the rule you cannot eat it if the pic is not taken! 😁
I used to arrange ingredients like a painter setting up a canvas. And photography became part of the cooking ritual, I’d stop mid-recipe to adjust the plate, wipe a little spill or move a piece of parsley just a bit to the left. It wasn’t about perfection, though. It was about attention. About seeing beauty in something as ordinary as a spoonful of soup.
Now we get to the more fun part... my old Instagram phase. Back then, I had a page called "Boćka Mućka", which roughly translates to “Bojana mixes things up”. And oh boy, did I mix! Hihi. At first, it was all about cakes, pastries, and desserts... a sugary wonderland of layers, glazes and chocolate swirls. I’d spend hours baking, arranging and photographing each cake like it was a celebrity. My captions were full of hearts, hashtags and exclamation marks. Then came my AIP era and suddenly Boćka Mućka turned into a health guru (well, a wannabe one). The page became full of soups, veggies, and “clean eating” inspiration. The colors changed, from chocolate browns to leafy greens and sunny yellows.
I lived in Belgrade at the time, with my sister. ❤️ We’d often laugh at my obsession with photographing food before eating it -> “If it’s not on Instagram, did it even happen?”
But secretly, I dreamed big. I wanted to be a known food influencer. I even made a logo! And my boyfriend ordered two aprons with my logo printed on them. They were adorable, bright, cheerful and perfectly matched my vibe. I remember thinking “This is it. My brand is born!”
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. 😁
As with most of my hobbies, the enthusiasm eventually started to fade. Some new interests took over and one day, I simply stopped posting. A few years later, in one of those “digital detox” moods, I deleted both my personal and Boćka Mućka Instagram accounts. But before pressing that final delete button, I made sure to save all the photos. And I’m so glad I did. Looking at them now, I can almost feel the warmth of my kitchen, smell the roasted garlic and hear the click of my old phone camera. Every photo reminds me not just of what I ate, but of how much I enjoyed creating something beautiful.
These days, I still try to eat healthy, but in a much more intuitive way. I listen to my body... what feels good, what doesn’t and I adjust.
So that’s my little culinary-photographic time capsule; a look back at the period when I cooked with intention, photographed with passion and posted with enthusiasm. Even though that chapter is closed, I’m grateful for it. It taught me patience, creativity and that beauty often hides in the simplest things. And who knows? Maybe Boćka Mućka will make a comeback someday... older, wiser and still mixing tasty things up in her kitchen.
