Thoughts on Penny De Los Santos weekend @CreativeLive

If you are a foodie, and you are not watching the weekend with Penny De Los Santos on CreativeLIVE.com, you are just missing out. Three days, six hours each, talking exclusively photographing food. You can watch it online for free this weekend, or purchase the whole workshop to watch at your own leisure. And it is not only Penny De Los Santos teaching. There are other guest interviews, like with editor James Oseland and photo editor Larry Nighswander from Saveur magazine. There are live shoots, both in studio and outside, showing how Penny is working a plate or a larger scene like in the food truck. And Penny showing collections of her images and sharing stories about them.

I am writing this post while watching the third day online. I am using the breaks to edit, and using all the notes I scribbled during the previous days. I have not watched everything, unfortunately. It is really intensive, and time consuming. A lot of information to process in relatively short time. Plus, there is life going on, especially now, on a weekend. But I spend every free checking what is going on in the live feed. I also made a tough decision and purchased the download, hoping to see the missed parts in the upcoming week. $99 dollars seemed like a lot for what are still consider merely a hobby. But I feel this workshop is really inspiring and I hope to be able to translate what I learn into more interesting, sellable stock images.

One thing to keep in mind why watching is the particular food photography style being taught in this workshop. Penny is a photojournalist. The photographs are not of perfectly styled food on white background, shot in studio with two flashes and on the tripod. The food is messy, disorganized, shot handheld and often from the ladder, using only available light. At the same time, you will learn a lot about shooting an assignment and how to build a photo story around the food. The live shots of oyster bake outside the studio and in food truck were really instructional for that purpose. Remembering about detail, portrait, movement, sense of place, all those elements contribute to the full story. Not forgetting to incorporate people and place. And seeing how great and how mundane shots can be taken by somebody as experienced as Penny de Los Santos right in front of you, live.

My favorite part was image critique on the first day. (Keep in mind I have not yet seen any other critiques yet ;)). I have seen some image critiques on popular food photography blogs. One of best is recently started series on Food Pixels. But hearing Larry Nighswander dissect images, composition, color etc. was just amazing. I learned a lot on how to shoot by listening to him drawing attention to points on how not to shoot. Another great advice was to keep the palette down to what is naturally in the food.

I think I am also less critical of overhead shots of food. I recently felt they are being seriously overused on some blogs. I found them unnatural, it is not how we look at our food, not when we prepare it, not when we eat it. But hearing Penny talk about food as consisting of visual elements changed my way of thinking. It is not showing the food in the usual, in the kitchen or at the table way, but show it at its best, as art even. And that is not about the taste. Additional advantage of overhead shooting for a photographer working alone is limited props required, as you do not need to build a scene behind your hero as for three fourths shot. A utensil and maybe a napkin, and that’s it.

On that note, one of my weekend shots. We are grilling a lot recently, as we just upgraded our old charcoal grill to a fancy gas grill. Is is just the variety of colors of this plate or am I already getting better? ;)