Photos from Helene Dujardin's food photo workshop (@SweetTartelette)
Last week, I took a food photo workshop with one of my favorite photographers/bloggers, Helene Dujardin (@SweetTartelette). Helene is a former pastry chef, the writer of Tartelette—a beautiful, delicious, and inspiring award-winning blog—and a busy food stylist and photographer. She is also an engaging, charming woman with great stories to share, magic fingertips and eyes for food. Add in a Masters in History as the cherry on top of the (insert your dessert of choice!).
Listening to Helene when she's talking about photography or just having a conversation about life is a treat.
Before I continue, I want to give a special mention to the darling Viv (@bonnevivante), my example to follow when it comes to hosting anything. She made this workshop possible, and as usual, made all of us feel at home. Thank you for your graciousness!
Helene began the workshop showing us a DVD with a slide show that was perfect to illustrate her process. It made it very easy to understand the concepts she presented. After we were done with this brief and very useful part of the workshop, we were invited to take out our food and props and begin shooting.
I chose to bring products related to Latin cuisine and some Venezuelan goodies. I had a mixed experience. Ají dulce (sweet bell peppers): a no-no; I went for the safe, all-in-a-bowl style and it didn't work out. Then I tried avocados. That's when Helene came by and said "scoop one side and rest the other on top of it". Bingo! It looked ¡fantástico!
Putting Helene's lighting ideas to work, I managed to take some decent photos of chocolate (from La Praline, in Caracas). I have always found chocolate to be hard to photograph but these images came out nicely. I still have to work on my styling skills, though!
The place I chose to work had great natural light and beautiful, intricate textures. I also had to use a light bouncer (which is great to have handy), and work around artificial light from lamps (hot lights).
The last photo I made was of Papelón con Limón cubes. The Papelón is also called Aguapanela or Aguadulce, and it is a traditional sweet drink in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Made in trapiches (in Venezuela, usually small, family-owned sugar cane mills). Helene mentioned she likes to work with dark backgrounds, so I tried a rich, dark brown one for this photo. The light is natural and very bright, and it ended up being a very simple shot.
I continued shooting at home that afternoon. First, using side light and a light bouncer on Diablitos Underwood (yes, I grew up on deviled ham, "yellow" cheese and arepas!). The photo of the wooden fruits (typical Venezuelan wooden folk art) was taken using backlight, which is great for metals and liquids, as we were told by Helene.
It was a wonderful experience. There is nothing that makes me happier than getting together with fellow photographers to discuss and share experiences. Helene was very generous, and I am grateful for being able to attend.
Please take a few minutes to read what photographers/bloggers Paula Thomas (@gapey), Lorna Yee (@lornayee) and Jackie Baisa (@JackieBaisa) said about this and Helene's next day Macaron workshop. And don't miss our friend @Luvuuh's "The Green Macaron" video here. ¡Es MUY cool!
¡Hasta una nueva entrega, mis amigos!
