food photography workshop

Hello! January is not my favorite month. Is it anyone’s? With my boys back at school after the holidays and the house undecorated and uncolorful, my mojo was taken out with the dried up Christmas tree sitting curbside. I’ve always liked the saying, “if what you’re doing isn’t working, change what you’re doing”. As much as I like this saying, I usually forget about it when I can’t muster the motivation for the change. But this year, my desire for not revisiting “that January feeling” was stronger than my lack of motivation. I took a step this past weekend to rekindle my spirit. It turned out it was more important than I ever thought it could be.

I’m always looking for classes or workshops to attend. This past fall I attended classes in both digital photography and Adobe Illustrator. During the summer I took an intensive Photoshop class and before that, a class in graphics for web design where I found myself completely lost and although I didn’t learn a thing, it still opened me up to a new experience. I’m always game for that kind of opportunity but what I really love is participating in workshops that focus on food styling and photography. They are usually a quick one day only class and more observation in nature than hands on. When I found Todd and Diane, the White On Rice Couple, I had a feeling this workshop may be a bit different. That was an understatement.

I never expected such an openness of shared information and techniques. No subject was off limits, all questions were answered and to top it off, Diane and Todd fed us throughout the day beginning with a hot breakfast and all without skipping a beat between presentations and exercises for us to work on in both styling and photography.

After lunch, the air filled with the scent of freshly baked cookies and around four, the aroma of the bubbling cheese dip baking away for appetizers before dinner nearly had me drooling on my camera.

This pair is definitely the culinary dynamic duo. Effortless and seamless. Diane and Todd’s cooking and rose bubbly that accompanied dinner was above and beyond and I can’t wait for their cookbook to come out this year.

Seven of us, all unknown to eachother on Friday morning, spent almost twelve hours each day together and we still lingered and were reluctant to leave when the time came. For two days I felt I had come home.

Every prop in their extensive collection was available for us to explore and use. We even painted two background boards to take home with us. Everyone found their own style and it was fascinating to see what others came up with.

I found this mini juicer in the prop room and had to make it mine for a photo.

This photo was of fruit just sitting on the counter. It was not styled at all but I saw the beauty in an unexpected place and had to capture it.

At times there was a lot of chatter in the air and we were very talkative and at other times you could hear a pin drop as we edited while music played softly in the background. It was a perfect balance conducive to creativity. You could feel the happiness everyone was experiencing.

I was given another gift from the universe by attending this workshop – I met the person who beat me this past summer for the Best of Show award for the best blog post at the OC Fair. I won the title last year and came in second this year. When this happened I was naturally disappointed and I thought, “okay who is this guy”. About two minutes into our first conversation, I told him if I had to lose to anyone I was glad it was him since I could not have lost to a nicer person. He is a lovely soul and his name is Trevor. His blog is Sis.Boom.Blog. Please visit him and tell him I sent you. You will love his passion for bistro cooking. What were the chances of meeting him? I think this ‘coincidence’ was amazing. We paired up and styled and shot the macrons together. We purposely challenged ourselves to shoot a light colored subject with a strong backlight. Trevor added the brown mac and I placed one outside of the bowl. I think we made a good team.

We played around with simple styling and contrasting colors. The tangerines were my first photo of the workshop. I focused on my ‘hero’ fruit with the leaves but I think some camera shake got in there. I was a tad nervous taking that first snap and working my big, new 100mm macro lens. He is such a big, bad boy and I love him already. I’m talking about the lens, just to be clear. 😉

On the second day, Diane set up a speed round for us. There were eight stations for us to go to that she had styled and we had one minute to find our angle and shoot. Although we were told there was no wrong or right and there really wasn’t, I felt sometimes I got it right…

… and other times, not so right…

Everyone was very friendly and it was interesting to hear what lead them to the workshop. We were all diverse – a couple of students, a professional wedding photographer, a children’s book author from Wisconsin, a counselor, etc. It was nice to be in a community that shared a common passion since this is something no one close to me has an interest in.

When I got back home on Saturday night, the last of the two workshop days, I walked in the house slower than usual. I was exhausted but in that satisfying way when you’ve hit the wall doing something you really love doing. My husband jokingly remarked he didn’t know food photography could be so exhausting. I told him he no idea and that I was surprised myself. All the muscles on my right side were sore from my arm down to my thigh. I got a great workout. No need to do lunges when trying to find different angles all day.

Like all fun get togethers when you lose yourself in the moment and forget to take photos, we forgot to snap a class photo but Diane took this one as she showed us how to make our own Vietnamese spring rolls. Such an unforgettable experience. (My hand is the one in the upper right corner ready to spear the roasted eggplant with gusto). 🙂