For my birthday this year (August) my aunt gave me a very nice present! Since I’m already really into foodphotography this was a perfect gift to learn more about it. She gave me a food photography & styling workshop for food bloggers. The workshop was given by Simone from Simones Kitchen and Alex from Alex Styling in the beautiful location called ‘de Keuken van Green Delicious’ in Voorschoten. On Sunday the 6th I traveled with my camera, lenses and tripod to the location and surprisingly I managed to get there without using google maps (I’m the worst with directions). The workshop started ate 10am and until 4pm and in this post I will describe the day and what I learned from it, hope you will like it!
As I said, the location was beautiful! The workshop took place at the attic of this old sort of farm looking house. There were all kinds of pretty props which we could use for our pictures. I wish I had such an amazing kitchen with so many different cutlery, plates, wooden boards, planks and fabrics to use for foodphotography.
There were 11 people and we started with a presentation from Simone about our camera (like ISO, diaphragm and other technical stuff). We continued with a presentation from Alex, who is a food stylist and knows all about great styling. Both were very useful presentations and I learned so much more tips and tricks. After a delicious lunch prepared by Natascha from Green Delicious, Alex continued with her styling class by showing us different props and how you can create them or where to buy them. Very helpful since I always wondered where people get all their beautiful props!
After all this information it was time to show what we learned and make some pictures ourselves! Natascha had some beautiful vegetables and fruits, and there were yoghurts and chocolate cookies to make pictures of. I partnered up with someone and we decided to give it a try with a vegetable, this was pretty difficult and I am not very happy with the pictures I took. So we decided to go for the cookies, also difficult but it was very nice to try different settings and backgrounds.
I like this picture the most of the cookie shots because of the crumbles and light background. Simone and Alex walked around to help or give us some more information about styling and our camera. After we took a couple of different shoots of the cookies we continued with the tiny pies we created with mascarpone and fresh fruit and nuts. This was my favourite subject of the day, the colours are so pretty I think. We also learned how to use diffusers and reflectors to play with the light and shadows. Below a couple of shots.
During the last picture I used my tripod which was very helpful to play with the ISO and get a nice light picture. That being said, I went out of my comfort zone as well by shooting some really dark pictures of bread. As you might know I just really love light and bright pictures, the lighter the better I think! But I also think dark pictures are so beautiful, they can look very rustic and that’s why it fits with the bread.
At the end of the day we also discussed some pictures and learned more about how to edit the picture. I had a great day and am even more excited now to buy new props and create more blogposts. I already always use the Manual mode but I learned more tips and tricks that I really wanna use and try out. I also wanna use my tripod more often ’cause it has so many advances when you use it. I think this workshop is very useful both for beginners and professionals. So I know what my next birthday whishes are; loads of pretty things I can use to create lovely food pics! I hope you liked this post and that it will inspire you to try new things with your camera.