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| Workshop location: Dream Big beach house. |
After only two full days in San Antonio, I got back on
an airplane and headed east once again.
This time, I flew out to the Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast for a food
photography workshop. Don’t roll your eyes;
you know your mouth waters whenever you see a great food picture in a magazine
or online! It may sound a bit geeky to
some of you, but with as much as I enjoy food and telling stories, it was a
natural progression. I’ve always loved
photography, and now that I’m shooting with a sophisticated camera again, I
really wanted to learn how to produce photos that capture the way my mind
experiences culinary adventures.
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| Helene demonstrating styling and shooting! |
During my convalescence from hip surgery about a year and a
half ago, I had purchased a book titled Plate to Pixel by Helene Dujardin.
She is a professional food photographer who also maintains a cool foodblog. As I followed her blog, I
discovered that she taught food photography workshops several times a year. Since I was right there in North Carolina, I
signed up for one she was putting on in Charleston, SC. Unfortunately, I ended up deploying the same
weekend as the workshop, but Helene was kind enough to give me a rain check for
the workshop this weekend.
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| This dessert tasted way better than it looks in my pic :-( |
So, after more than a year of waiting for
professional guidance, I finally participated in her workshop, which was
conducted at a beach house on Gulf Shores, AL.
The seminar was co-taught with another professional food
photographer/blogger named Clare Barboza.
Whereas Helene is a pastry chef turned food photographer, Clare’s
background in art brings out more of the backstory of food instead of recipes. Although their approaches to food and
bringing its story to life are different, both seem to arrive with very similar
accounts and philosophies. The dynamic
duo of these two talented women, coupled with the equally gifted culinary
assistants of Laura and Libby, produced an informative and fun educational
experience embedded in four days of great food and company!
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| Antipasta shooting assignment. |
There were a dozen attendees whose backgrounds included
professional, as well as para-professional, photographers and bloggers, restaurant owners, chefs and hobbiest. Even with so much variation in experiences,
Helene and Clare were able to address each of our talent levels and facilitate the
transition of each individual into his/her next level of mastery. They accomplished this through assisted
assignments. Having just gone through
training on how to be an effective instructor, I appreciated the thoughtfulness
and structure of the exercises. The
first two were on our own after a didactic overview of lighting, depth of
field, composition and styling. I
struggled with the dessert assignment but seemed to find some vision for the
anti pasta shoot. Although the amount of
food manhandling that occurred while we positioned the food for each shoot
dissuaded group consumption most of the time, I was relieved to find that their
food styling techniques weren’t overly artificial. I’ve read accounts of photographed foods
being primped with hairspray, paint, fake parts and other non edible means which
strikes me as dishonest. I'm inevitably disappointed when
food I buy or am served in a restaurant doesn’t look like its advertisement pictures. Instead of food trying to look like its
marketing pictures, I prefer for my pictures to be a real, albeit somewhat
refined, representation of the food it depicts; Helene and Clare showed me the
way! Of course, I’m not trying to make a
living off my photos or the foods in them, so I have the luxury of my
altruistic view!
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| Bread company assignment. |
After the individual assignments, we were paired with
another attendee for the next two shoots.
For the first, I was the photographer and my partner, Sharon, was the
food stylist. Our guidance was “product
shoot, bread company, rustic French kitchen.”
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| Not contemporary, but it is light and airy! |
For the second shoot, I was the stylist and Sharon was the
photographer. Our direction was “editorial
spread, healthy eating, light airy and contemporary.” Although I struggled as a stylist, Sharon and
I collaborated to a successful final product.
Both she and I tend to gravitate towards rustic more than contemporary,
so we shot a few in that style as well, as depicted in the accompanying photo.
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| Ugly can challenge....budget Italian wedding soup. |
The final photo shoot of the workshop was the “ugly can
challenge.” We had to each choose one of
over a dozen budget, canned soups lined up on the counter and present a photo
that could be used by the manufacturer in a marketing ad. My challenge was a can of Italian wedding
soup. I’ll let you decide if I met the
challenge or not….
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| Gulf Shores, AL beach. |
Overall, I spent a satisfying four days on the Gulf
Coast. The weather was cooperative, the company
animated, the instruction exemplary, and the food decadent. Even though I don’t earn an income off my
culinary reproductions, I felt like my time was well-spent and my experience-repertoire
enhanced by the trip J
Just to prove that I'm not alone in my food and photography fascination, here are links to the websites of other participants...
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