Styling, Food + Photography at The School

A few Sundays ago I had the pleasure and the privilege of attending a food photography workshop as a guest of Olympus. It was two hours of fun at The School, led by the gorgeously enthusiastic Megan Morton and featuring some serious styling and photographing talent from the drool inducing Delicious magazine. 

This was a workshop in the true sense of the word. No sitting watching endless power points and taking endless notes - after a quick intro outlining some basics it was straight into an hour of styling and then an hour of shooting. I fumbled about looking slightly confused in the first hour. Even given the amazing surrounds and the treasures of The School's prop cupboard I struggled to style anything. Let's just say I have a new found respect for stylists and all of you vignetters out there in Instagram-land. 

I felt a bit more at home in the second half, the photo taking bit. It was heaps of fun playing with backgrounds and lighting; and picking the brains of people who do this each and every day. That's actually my favourite part of these kinds of things - the opportunity to talk to a professional, and to watch how they work. 

I learnt some stuff too. I realised I often get stuck in a rut; I reach too easily for the lighting and colours and angles that are known and comfortable. I need to break out of that. So I'm going to work on taking more vertically oriented (portrait) photos and trying different angles (not everything has to be shot from overhead!).

Here are some of my favourite photos from the day, taken with an OM-D E-M10 which Olympus lent to us all for the two hours...