posted in 26 Jan, 2010 by L
Hi All! Happy Belated New Year!
Sorry for the long silence, but I’m excited to let you know that there are some big things coming up this year! For starters, I’m beginning to teach a few classes on food photography and natural food styling. These will be small, hands-on classes where we will focus more on the ins and outs of food photography (plating, lighting, lens choice) rather than camera basics.
The first class is coming right up! Thanks to the wonderful efforts of Seattle Bon Vivant, who will be hosting the workshop, a group of 10 of us will meet in downtown Seattle on February 16th. To sign up and for more details, email seattlebonvivant (at) gmail.com with a subject line of Lara Ferroni’s Workshop. The cost of the class will be $65 per person.
I’ll also be offering private one on one and small group (up to 4 people) workshops this year. For more information on those, send me some mail on what you are most interested to learn and we can talk about what works.
posted in 11 Dec, 2009 by L
I’ve been looking forward to today for many weeks now, as soon as I heard that Penny De Los Santos (National Geographic photographer as well as a significant contributor to Savuer) was coming to Seattle to give a talk on her work and food photography. It’s an early Christmas present for me. Last night, I had the pleasure of meeting of meeting Penny at an informal potluck welcoming her to Seattle, and she shared a few of her stories while we sat around on couches and a fire twinkled behind her. I could have sat there for hours listening to Penny. She is a delight, and I found myself quickly caught up in her passion. It’s exactly what I needed to inspire me and get me to think about my work in a new light… something I think we all need now and then.
I’ll have more on the today’s workshop later in the weekend, but until then, you should check out some of Penny’s work.
Photo by Penny De Los Santos
posted in 28 Sep, 2009 by L
I’m just back home after a weekend spent in San Francisco attending and speaking at BlogHer Food 09. What a wonderful trip! I was so honored to be asked to speak along with so many of my food photography/blogging heros… Heidi Swanson, Matt Armendariz and Todd & Diane, as well as putting faces to names of so many bloggers that I love (too many to name here!)
Matt & I finished up the visual track with a talk on Advanced Photography, which was more about workflow and some thoughts on taking your photos to the next level than f-stops and ISOs. I had an absolute blast!
If you missed the talk, or wanted to revist the slides, I’ve posted them here. The PDF file is a little on the large size, so be prepared for a bit of a slow download.
If you have other questions, as always, feel free to send them my way.
Thanks again to the folks at BlogHer for inviting me to speak!
PS – If you missed BlogHerFood, why not head to Ixtapa in January for the Food Blogger Camp? I’m thinking about heading down myself!
posted in 30 Jun, 2009 by L
Before I start to talk about the International Conference on Food Styling & Photography’s Monday “Master” workshop with Francine Zaslow & Deborah Jones, let me first put this thought in your head. What kind of a saint would you be to let 30 people with cameras in tow crowd around you and watch you work all day? And on top of that, be willing to talk through, step-by-step, what you are doing?
These two women (as well as their fantastic assistants and stylists) are some kind of angels for not only sharing their time and knowledge but doing it in such an elegant, patient and down right entertaining way. The folks that were able to attend this session were incredibly lucky to be hosted by such a wonderful team (and I’m pretty sure everyone felt that way).
Secondly, Francine & Deborah were throwing out so many ideas and tips and tricks during the day that it’s impossible to remember them all. This post will probably be more photos than anything because I had a camera clicking away in my hands “taking notes” rather than pen & paper. The ideas will probably come to me now and then over the next month or so, and I’ll post them as they come. Just realize that any tips listed here are really the tip of the iceberg and that next time, get yourself to the conference so you don’t miss them!
So with that, the day. After a quick bus ride across town to Francine’s studio that is located down by the shipping docks (I’m sure there is some name for this section of Boston, but I’m not that familiar with it). About 30 of us from the conference wandered into the studio really not knowing exactly what to expect. We were a motley crew of photographers, stylists, graphic designers, art directors with quite a lot of “oh, I do this and that and a little something else” thrown in. Photographers, of course, immediately grabbed cameras to capture all the incredible props.
Francine started out with a walk through of some of her work and client requirement docs (after taking a while to figure out how the projector worked… which seemed to be a bit of a running theme throughout the conference… very few of the presenters really knew how to use their computers for things other than Photoshop, but all of them handled it with such humbleness and good spirits it was never really a problem) and then Deborah showed a quick slideshow of behind the scenes of a few of her cookbook shoots, pointing out the great length that she & her assistants go to get the light bounced back on the subject in just the right way (including precariously standing on the railing of a balcony). Then, the day began in earnest. There were two sets, one daylight and the other with strobe. Deborah would be shooting all day on the daylight set (according to her assistant, she shoots about 80% daylight) and Francine was on the strobe set (she shoots almost exclusively strobe). They’d each be shooting to a fictitious client project, a brochure for olive oil, which required 5 photos. There were 3 (I think) stylists helping out and 3 or 4 assistants (sorry… there were so many people running around it was, at times, hard to tell who was an attendee versus an assistant versus a stylist). We were welcome to watch whatever was going on, to ask questions, to take photos, to look through the cameras, and to help out where needed.
Francine was shooting with a Hasselblad back on a very cool Rollei bellows system tethered to FlexColor and her set included 3 strobes. One was positioned behind a diffusing sheet on a wooden frame. The benefit of this setup is that the strobe could be adjusted to achieve just about any effect… moving it closer to the diffusion screen or further away for more intense or diffuse light, or positioning it lower or higher on the frame for more direction or top light. I think it might have been my favorite thing out of the whole experience… I loved the crafty nature of this big wooden structure with all of the high-end tech. Two other lamps placed below the diffusion screen were used to add highlights and fills. I’m quite intrigued by her tiny dedolight spotlight which she used to illuminate the prawns in her first shot… it had the effect of making the food glow, but somehow without looking fake or unnatural. In fact, this is a running theme throughout Francine’s work. She is a master at using strobes look as though she were shooting in the most perfect, beautiful daylight.
Although I think I should have probably spent more time with Francine to learn more about strobes, I did tend to gravitate to Deborah’s set (she was shooting with a Phase One medium format tethered to Capture One) and working with natural light which I love. It was an overcast day in Boston, so Deborah couldn’t show us many of her tricks for dealing with harsh light but she still managed to fill my head with more than I can remember. Mainly she emphasized that it is still important to control the light, even when using daylight. She has all kinds of tricks, which mostly amount to grabbing whatever is close at hand (my kind of shooter!) to use to modify the light. Plastic bags, bottles, small mirrors, black pieces of poster board, plexiglass and perhaps my favorite, post its! A post-it note, which comes with it’s own adhesive, can be stuck just about anywhere to soften or reduce a highlight. And, different colors of post its can make for some interesting effects. Brilliant! As soon as I got home, I ordered some of the little plastic blocks I had seen on her set. These are incredibly handy if you need a little bit of light modification, or you just need something to hold something in place.
A few other great ideas & reminders from the day:
Level the set! This is particularly important if you are shooting liquids such as cocktails or soups. But it is good practice for anything you shoot and will save you time later. Little pieces of stick-tack work great for making small corrections.
If you can, buy any herbs or greens as plants. They’ll stay fresh longer and often it’s cheaper than buying the little clamshell packages. Plus, they can act as potted plants for a background in a pinch.
For backdrops, be creative! Deborah shot one or two of her shots with a gold bounce (it’s silver on one side, gold on the other) as the backdrop which ended up looking like a wonderfully, light filled, warm wall.
Try Deborah’s 15 minute photography exercise. Take a subject on a set and shoot it, just for practice, for 15 minutes. Then STOP! Now, do something else with the same subject. But shoot it from a new angle, in a new set, on a new plate… do something different. Rinse & repeat. This is a great way to really push yourself to think about your shots creatively and get you out of a rut.
And finally, Deborah shared with us some of her favorite quotes about photography and art, and I’ll close by sharing one of them with you.
“Never try to be an artist. Just do your work and if the work is true, it will become art.” – Duane Michaels, Photographer
Thank you Deborah & Francine for sharing yourselves with us for the day!
posted in 17 Jun, 2009 by L
I’m just back in town after the 2009 International Conference on Food Styling & Photography at Boston University, and my head is still so full, I’m not sure exactly how to begin to share a little of the weekend with you all.
First, I’ll start with, if you have any interest in food styling and photography, whether you are professional or not, and you get a chance to attend this conference in the future, go. For a conference of it’s scope, it is incredibly affordable (I’m looking at a 1 day photography workshop later this summer that is $1200! Compared to the entire conference plus two additional workshops for only $950) and there are just no other events that I can think of that you can meet so many talented people in this industry, see their work, pick their brains and share a lobster with. OK. Enough of my cheerleading… now onto what happened this year.
Although turnout was a little lower than the previous conference in 2007, the speakers were fantastic. Photographers included Christopher Hirsheimer, Francine Zaslow, Deborah Jones, Steve Adams, Beatrice Peltre (yea Bea!), Lou Manna, Jim Scherer, Teri Campbell, Mette Nielsen, Pornchai Mittongtare, Greg Bertolini, Stef Culberson, and James Tse. Stylists included Clare Ferguson, Melissa Hamilton, Lisa Golden Schroeder, John Carafoli, Marcela Sorondo, Delores Custer, Francine Malalon-Degni, Peggy Chase Jordao, Lorna Rhodes, Laura Shapiro, Alice Hart and Catrine Kelty. We were given a glimpse inside of Maxine Kaplan’s amazing NYC prop rental house. Harold McGee gave the key note!
Frankly, as soon as I saw that Christopher Hirsheimer was talking, I knew I’d be attending. It was quite a way for me to kick off the conference too, as the first talk I attended was with Christopher & stylist Melissa Hamilton. There seems to be an unwritten rule in my world that if I pick up a book and instantly fall in love with the photos, 9 times out of 10 they will be Christopher’s. In addition to loving her work, I love her story. She started as a caterer for Metropolitan Home, and was asked to fill in for the food stylist one day. That led to a full time food styling gig, even though she really didn’t know a thing about food styling. She just made the food look the way she wanted it to look… messy crumbs and all… which led to a whole new way of styling food for editorial publications. Step forward a few years, and she stepped into food photography in a similar way as she became the primary photographer for the newly formed Saveur. Melissa’s story has a similar windy path… a love of food led her into the restaurant business (Hamilton’s Grill Room) with her family doing thing much differently than other restaurants in the area, with amazing success. A chance opportunity with a friend led her to her first food styling job, and an entirely new and beautiful career working with publications like Martha Stewart Living and Cooks Illustrated before eventually working with Christopher.
[Photos by Christopher Hirsheimer]
The two of them together now run a studio in New Jersey, and have begun publishing their own cookbook series (in addition to other cookbook and commercial work) called
Canal House Cooking. This talk, like many over the conference, was more about inspiration than technical how-tos and as such, it’s hard to communicate the sparks it started in my own head, which certainly would be different for each attendee. But their key message was to take chances, follow your passion, and don’t worry so much about the rules. On a food shoot, plans tend to go out the window when you are really paying attention to the food and what it is asking for. Christopher said, “Each shoot has a language of it’s own” and when you can listen to that, you will be successful. I could have sat and listened to Christopher & Melissa talk, and look at their gorgeous images all day… but all too soon it was time for the next talk.
I’m going to go quickly over a few of the next talks, or I’d be writing for days, and you’d get bored. In the next talk, Pushing the Limits between Advertising & Editorial Photography, we learned how the advertorial, or shooting an ad like it was part of the magazine complete with a bit of branded content, was born and successful. Advertisers are definitely watching what happens in the more loose world of editorial and bringing those ideas onto their work, and presenters Mel Mooney (who works for Saveur) and John Carafoli see the trend continuing. Next up was Clare Ferguson & Marcela Sorondo talking about trends in styling outside of the US, including some of their own work over the years. Like in the US, trends are going toward the natural and “unstyled style” of food that looks doable rather than perfect. Clare touched on a few other trends that I’ve seen here as well… empty dishes (or half empty) communicate life going on in the image, that the food was so good it didn’t even last long enough for the photo, that most food photos are now more budget conscious than five years ago (as the downturned economy continues to play a role), and homage to regional traditions and culture but with a younger more fashionable twist. Clare is someone you could spend days and days listening to and never get bored… you just might want a little break because your stomach will probably be cramping up from laughing so much. Buy her books, they are lovely.
The next talk is critical for those in the commercial styling industry: sustainable styling. If you are a home blogger or work for small or medium sized business the ideas probably apply less or maybe not at all. But on large commercial shoots, the amount of waste that can be generated is huge. Boxes and boxes of product are shipped all over the country, mostly to be thrown away. Many stylists these days donate their unused product to shelters which is a great benefit to everyone. However, it’s still better not to truck all that product around in the first place. Just a few ideas from presenters Mette Nielsen and Stef Culberson include talking with clients about using less product in the first place, getting the product locally if possible, using seasonal garnishes and composting leftovers of opened products. Other ideas include buying & growing your own potted herbs instead of those in the little plastic clam shells which will usually be cheaper and give you better photos. Stef has started offering a
Green Styled Food Seminar for stylists and photographers on her farm in Wisconsin and includes how to more sustainably source your ingredients and shooting with available light. The next one is in early July.
At that point, we were all pretty cooked for the day. But, I was lucky enough to have been able to meet Aran of Cannelle et Vanille and we went for dinner together and talked about blogging, photography, kids and life. Aran’s work is truly stunning, and I’m sure you are already reading her blog… but if not, do start! Her pastries are exquisite and she has an amazing eye for both styling & photography, not unlike one of my other favorite people, Beatrice Peltre. Which leads me to the next morning…
The first talk on Sunday was about business, and featured panelists who looked at the industry from different perspectives. First was Eugene Mopsik from ASMP. If you are a professional photographer (or on your way to becoming one) and shoot for the media, this is a good organization to join. Eugene shared many thoughts on how the downturned ecomony and greater emphasis on web advertising may impact photographers in the future. The biggest issue he sees has to do with copyright laws, and like the last conference, he reminded us all that if your images aren’t registered and they are used without permission there is no financial recourse you can take. Register your images! The ASMP site has very good information on how to do this along with other very useful info like a licensing guide, release forms, and terms & conditions forms. Ilise Benun was up next to talk about how to market yourself (get a LinkedIn account and use it for research, make personal connections, follow up!). Tim Foley of Full Contact advertising studio gave this piece of advise for photographers and stylists: understand what the client is looking for. If you are asked to give a bid on a job, make sure you communicate that you get the vision of the client and not just your own vision.
[Photos by Beatrice Peltre]
Finally, my good friend Beatrice Peltre talked about entering the industry from the blogger’s point of view and what it takes to run a successful food blog these days. Bea’s advice is simple but invaluable:
be honest and authentic. If you can tell your story in an interesting way and become a part of the community, people will notice. And of course, we got to see lots of Bea’s beautiful work (including some from her book which will be out next year!)
The rest of the sessions were more on the inspirational side, looking at photo after photo of beautiful food, props and locations while the stylists and photographers echoed much of the previous sentiment… listen to the client, but don’t be afraid to take chances. Shoot what you need, but then take the time to try alternative shots. Work deliberately and thoughtfully on your shots to really capture the essence of the form, color and textures. I truly enjoyed each of the presentations, but I’d have to say my favorite of the day was by Pornchai Mittongtare.
[Photos by Pornchai Mittongtare]
Pornchai is from Thailand, but has been in the US shooting food for many years. He started as a product photographer, but after sending his work to Bon Appetit, he moved into shooting food and has been with it ever since. His work is lovely in general, but I particularly his photos from a trip back to Thailand where he shot many of the fruits that are local to the area. This work isn’t on his portfolio unfortunately, as I’d really love to share it with you.
It was an amazing two days, but the best was still to come.
On Monday, I attended the optional hands-on workshop at Francine Zaslow’s studio with Francine & Deborah Jones. As great as the rest of the weekend was, if I had only been able to attend this class, it would have made the whole trip worthwhile. There is so much to share from this day though, it really deserves a post (or 50) of it’s own. So, I’ll continue with that tomorrow.
posted in 17 Jan, 2009 by L
Sun, Surf & Food Style II: This three-day hands-on workshop will be held in San Diego, California on February 20-22, 2009.
After the first day of group instruction, the stylists and photographers will work in pairs with the food stylists under the guidance of Lisa Golden Schroeder and the photographers with Gregory Bertolini. Each stylist/photographer team will produce a number of images using Gregory Bertolini’s professional equipment (Hasselblad Medium Format and Linhof and Sinar Large Format View Cameras) as well as your own photography equipment. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to consult with Gregory one-on-one. Stylists will work closely with Lisa to style a number of dishes. Everyone will walk away with several images for their portfolios.
On day two, students will receive hands-on experience in creating editorial images (e.g. produce a cover shot for a food magazine), and day three will focus on creating advertising images (e.g produce a packaging image for a frozen pizza box).
For more information, see the Photo Styling Workshop website.
If you can’t make it to San Diego, check out Everyday Food Styling, an online 4-week fully interactive course taught by Lisa Golden Schroeder starting January 27th.
posted in 31 Dec, 2008 by L
Quickly now before time runs out by the end of day, today… have you checked out the great food photography and styling offerings this year on Menu for Hope 5? All money donated goes to help fight world hunger, and you may be one of the lucky ones that grab the Master Food Styling Class with two of my favorite ladies, Denise & Cindie! Or, how about a pair of Lowel Ego lights from Sam of Becks & Posh. Head over to Matt’s to find the west coast offerings with both of these prizes, or to Pim’s to see a complete list of prizes.
Also, here’s another cool opportunity… head over to White on Rice and enter the drawing for a free online Food Photography class by Ron Goldman and Kathleen Clemons.
posted in 29 Jul, 2007 by L
I’m just back from Chicago, from BlogHer, the conference for women bloggers. Bea, Jan and I all had such a great time with our panel on Food Photography (HappyKatie live blogged about it here, and StyleFool here. Thanks to both of you for such a great job transcribing). As someone who isn’t much of a fan of public speaking, I have to say, I had so much fun during this talk, and just wanted to say a big thanks to all the attendees for their great questions and attention. There was so much to cover… far more than was possible in the hour and a half we had, and every few minutes I think of another thing that I wish that I had said. But, I guess that just gives me more stuff to talk about here.
Once again, thanks to all the attendees and to BlogHer and it’s sponsors for asking me to attend.
PS: Bea has added a great summary of some of her key points on her blog… do take a look!
posted in 24 Jul, 2007 by L
Matt just forwarded this along to me… Caren Alpert and Kevin Crafts will be doing an encore performance of their Food Photography & Styling demo at the Apple store in San Francisco on Friday, Aug 3rd at 7pm.
The Apple store website doesn’t have any details up yet, but keep your eye on it as I’m sure it will soon. These talks are usually free, so expect it to be crowded.
posted in 20 Jul, 2007 by L
If you missed the Boston University International Food Styling & Photography conference back in June, you missed a great talk by the food stylists and photographers from Gourmet Magazine. Luckily, you have another chance to catch at least some of this team in action, at the 5th Annual Gourmet Institute in October. Your $1,394 buys you 4 cooking demonstrations or talks on both Saturday and Sunday, and a few meals and galas along the way. Talks and demos will be by some of the big names in food… Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, Ed Levine, Thomas Keller, and Ruth Reichl to name just a few. Seminars and tasting are starting to sell out, so if you are going, best to book right away.
On the last minute note, if you happen to live in Manilla, there is a rumor that there is a food lighting workshop going on tomorrow, July 21st, at Cafe Ysabel in Greenhills by Ricky Ladia.
Adorama is now offering photography workshops. Unfortunately, the food photography workshop with Lou Manna was back in March. But, keep your eye out on their website for new classes if you are in the New York area.
Focal Point Visual Learning Center in Vancouver, BC is currently holding an ongoing class on food styling and photography on Thursdays from 2 to 5pm. The workshop started on July 12th, but continues on through August 23rd, so it may not be too late to join. See the Focal Point website for contact info and more information.
For those planning further ahead, check out the Travel & Food Photography Workshop in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas in February of 2008 offered by Marilyn Tausend. The 6-day trip looks like a beautiful combination of culture, cooking and photography for a cost of $2,850 (plus some transportation expenses). The group size will be from 8 to 12 people. Please see Marilyn’s website for more information.
For those of you in Chicago, it looks like there is a small class forming the weekend of Nov 2-4 2007, on food photography tips & tricks by a Shutterstock photographer. The class is limited to 5 people, so it may be full… but perhaps you’ll be able to convince the photographer to try a repeat class?
(update)
Oh, and I almost forgot. This year’s BlogHer conference in Chicago next weekend will be host to a little panel on Food Photography featuring the wonderful Beatrice of La Tartine Gourmande as well as the Photoshop Guru Jan Kabili. Oh, right, and likely a very stage-fright ridden me. Do make sure you stop by and introduce yourself after the talk once my heartrate has calmed back down to the two-digits.
Technorati Tags: Food, Food Styling, Photography
