Over the last several months you have seen the ads, tweets, facebook reminders and any other way that I have hyped my December food photography workshops. Well the waiting has ended. This past weekend, the Food Photography Overhaul workshops took place.

I have taught food photography classes before, but this was the first time that I have created, marketed, and run my very own food photography workshop. From 8:30-4:30 on Saturday and Sunday, I had the privilege of sharing what I have learned with 7 amazing photographers and amazing individuals. Before the workshop began, I was pretty nervous about what to expect. 8 hours is a long time to fill. I planned out my lesson of the topics that I wanted to cover, made some slides, and prepared the best that I could. Throughout the day we covered everything you could think of. From the basics of shooting in manual mode, to different types of artificial lighting, learning a little but about Adobe Lightroom, how to set up a studio in your home, using color theory, and many more topics. During day one, I was having so much fun watching everyone shoot and answering questions, that I only instagramed a few behind the scenes shots.

On day 2, I did remember to take some behind the scenes images, so here is a sneak peek in what was going on.

While the props and shots varied between classes, there was one shot that I did in both classes. This involved a can of tomato soup. The purpose of this shot was to learn how to get a highlight on your soup and was an exercise in complimentary colors. Here is the shot that Class number 1 came up with.

and here is class number 2’s soup.

Same subject, similar lighting, same props, but different styling. These soups are a true representation of the two classes. Both classes covered the same information and taught the same skills, but with two separate different groups of people, the way I arrived at covering all the material was very different. With the attendees in each group all having different levels of experience the questions that arose were very different. I loved how over the eight hours that we spent together, each group became its own and the pictures that they came up with were unique to them!

Thank you to Regan, Gretchen, Shannon, Leena, Alison, Mary, and Tamera for making these two weekend workshops so great!

Here are Mary’s thoughts on the workshop.

I had so much fun with these two workshops that I will definitely be doing more in the future. I am in the planning stages of taking the workshop outside Charlotte and on the road. In April, May, and June, I could be coming to where you live. If you and a few of your friends are interested in having me do a workshop on your town, send me an email (taylor at taylortakesataste.com) and I would love to visit your city for a workshop!

Every workshop includes my excellent hand modeling…

Thank you again to everyone who participated this weekend! You were all amazing, and I can’t wait to see the new pictures you create!