{Food Styling + Photography Workshop} Local is Lovely

Last week I had two wonderful days in the country. Surrounded by inspiration, creative women, home cooking and my Canon 5d Mark III at the ready. It could not have been any more perfect for a girl who loves food, styling and photography. Sophie Hansen from Local is Lovely hosted the Food Styling and Photography workshop at her parents farm ‘Kimbri’ in Rydal. Located 2 1/2 hours west of Sydney meant an early start to arrive by 9am. When I arrived I was delighted to find my friend Jane Grover had also booked in for the workshop. Sophie’s mum artist Annie Herron is an art teacher and she has Art Classes throughout the year at Kimbri. Oh how I wish I was a watercolorist so I could spend five magical days here painting. A girl can dream, cant she?!. Maybe one day….

Arriving at Kimbri instantly I felt at home. Welcomed by Luisa Brimble – a passionate, generous and talented photographer. Being creative I need to understand the technical in a hands on creative way. Luisa is empathetic to this with her patient and relaxed teaching style. I loved that it was 80% practical and 20% theory. It was well paced and we all had ten minutes with Luisa for one and one sessions. We put all our newfound skills into practice on the DSLR’s manual settings.

Stylist Stephanie Stamatis and her assistant/model Ella Bendrups flew up from Melbourne bringing swoon worthy props and backgrounds. She created a veritable playground of beautiful vignettes for us to photograph. I am in awe of her eye for detail and precise yet relaxed approach to styling. Amelia Toohey from The Flower Era did the early morning trek to the flower markets in Sydney to bring us the prettiest autumn flowers and her creative floristry skills.

Sophie and her friend Pip prepared delicious food for breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Needless to say there was food in abundance and we certainly did not go hungry! It was a short reprieve being away from my family knowing I would not upset anyone taking seemingly endless photos of our food before ‘I allowed’ them to eat. My husband is always saying that’s enough photos….my reply is always “just one more”. After all it could be that last shot which is the hero! Sophie and her husband Tim are deer farmers and they host farm kitchen lunches at their farm Mandagery Creek, 20 minutes west of Orange. This lady juggles a family, a farm, is a food writer and has just written her first cook book Local is Lovely.

I hardly slept a wink on the first night because my mind was racing from such a visually sensory day. Back in my room my head was giddy with composition, aperture, metering, ISO’s, overexposing, underexposing and light. My dreams were vivid and filled with the beauty of images captured on digital ‘film’.

Images last forever, they are a record of a time, a place, a moment. They are powerful in evoking emotions. In photography I am drawn to contrast of the moodiness and shadows in underexposed images and the light and brightness in overexposing images. Two opposites yet equally beautiful in there own way.

In all things beautiful,

Lyn xx

ps The sweetest young lady – student Hannah McCowatt joined us to film this lovely montage capturing the essence of two magical days at Kimbri. This girl has talent! She is developing her blog at the moment and I can’t wait to see it.

{Food Styling + Photography Workshop} Local is Lovely

April 12, 2015 | 2 Comments