Food Nation Photography Workshop

I recently held a fantastic food photography workshop at Food Nation’s premises in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne. The team wanted me to teach them how to use their kitchens and prep areas to take great shots of their food on their phones and company camera. The idea was to experiment with different backdrops and available lighting to promote the food they produce at their cookery workshops.

The team cooked a series of recipes from one of their sponsor’s Jamie’s Ministry of Food all with different photographic challenges, whether it be shooting whilst food is steaming, eggs sinking into stews or colour corrections once plated up. We had a mass of props and once each dish was cooked we experimented with angles, colours and close ups to get new attractive approaches to photographic compositions.

We had lots of fun and the team took away great tips for their future social networking images. To view recipes, cookery workshops and general news here is their website http://www.foodnation.org

food nation food photography workshop Jamie's saladFood nation photography workshop with jamie's ministry recipesfood nation food photography workshop

Photography Summer School, Goldsmiths University, London

This week was a special one as I was teaching a particularly lovely youth group for a summer project for a charity based at Goldsmiths in South London. The aim was to prepare the group for a shoot at an event this Autumn.

After inspiration trips to Central London galleries, practical lessons on handling a camera, its settings and managing light, the group applied their learnings to a portrait shoot out in the colourful and lively market of Lewisham. The results were absolutely amazing as they went from knowing very little about technical theory and composition, to having the confidence to approach people on the street and execute perfectly exposed, rich story telling portraiture.

On the last day we composed a few fun shots with timed exposures so we all had a memento of the week! The critique offered some fantastic imagery so I have included their work in this post. See what you think…..

Thanks to the enthusiastic and very talented gang; Danielle, Rheanna, Evelyn, William and last, but certainly not least ;- ) Julian!

teaching at goldsmiths summer photography course for charity organisation

lewisham market portraits teaching photography summer workshop

students work at the photography workshop teaching at goldsmiths