Food Styling and Photography

I was fortunate to be among the students in Denise Vivaldo's Food Styling class in Long Beach, California last weekend. Denise and Cindie Flannigan showed us how to style the food and Matt  Armendariz coached us in taking photos of the food.

Looking at food pictures in a magazine makes it look elegant and easy. The pictures are a 1000 words. Many of the words can't be repeated in mixed company. It's not as easy as it looks.

I arrived a little nervous and worried I might have forgotten something. I had checked my equipment many times to be sure it was ready to go. I had planned to take dozens of shots and have Matt show me better angles to capture the light. I picked up my camera only to have it refuse to take a picture. No problem - if I had put the compact flash card in it. Muttering silently to myself and frantically searching through my camera bag I had to fess up to having no card. Matt graciously loaned me one of his to take the pictures of my food. The pictures turned out gorgeous. I was so pleased with all I learned and would recommend this class to everyone.

Then I wanted to take pictures of the food everyone was doing. Oops, the flash card problem again. Lucky I had a little point and shoot in my camera bag and was able to grab a few shots.

I left the class on Sunday after two days of intensive care from Denise, Cindie and Matt with my head spinning. So many ideas, so many things to do and start and finish and...

I met Cathy Shambly at the class and she encouraged me to start a blog. Thank you Cathy, now I have another addiction... blogging.