A Food Photography Workshop

Chapter Five - Food Bloggers and the Photography Workshop

Good photographs are essential for a successful food blog, so the Food Photography session at the Taste of Ayrshire Food Bloggers Conference was eagerly anticipated.

Darren McKean of Fiona McKean Photography took us through a rough guide to the equipment that would help us take better photographs.  These included covering a piece of card with tin foil or using a piece of white polystyrene as a light reflector as you can see in the photograph above, and yes, that is me!  Thanks to Louise at Please Do Not Feed the Animals for sharing her photograph with me.

Here are a few of the other tips that Darren shared with us:

• When food styling use the colour wheel to find opposite colours.  There are online versions such as colourschemedesigner.com which can can help you choose good colour combinations.

• Keep a styling box with a variety of boards, plates, cutlery.  Bargains can be found in supermarkets, charity shops and £1 shops.

• When taking photos of food where you have wet or sticky hands, wrap your camera in cling film 

Darren tried hard to explain camera settings to us and I picked up the following:

• Use ISO 1600 or above for indoor shots

• Aperture = depth of field, the higher the number the greater the depth of field

Probably the most important tip that I learned from the session was to get the shoot area, your props and your camera set up, then prep your food, do a test shoot, then finally the food shoot.

This is the final chapter from the Food Bloggers Conference, many thanks to Lisa Tennant of Taste of Ayrshire for organising the event, to Ayr Racecourse for hosting and to all the contributors who were generous with their time and talents. I really enjoyed meeting the bloggers with special thanks to Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes and Louise from Please Do Not Feed the Animals for sharing their photographs with me.

Goodie Bag

Focus on the oatcakes

Focus on the cheese

Thanks also for the goodie bag containing a piece of Barwheys Fine Ayrshire Cheese, it was just as cheese should be, sharp and tangy.  To complement the cheese was a pack of Wooleys Traditional Oven Baked Arran Oatcakes, a firm and well fired oatcake I really enjoyed.  My husband was particularly impressed by the Threepwood Fayre, Orange and Lime Fondant Creams.

If you have missed the other posts from the conference you can find them here:
Chapter 1 - Sustainability, Seasonality and Ethical Purchasing
Chapter 2 - Food Bloggers do Social Networking
Chapter 3 - Food Bloggers go to Ayr Races
Chapter 4 - How to improve your blog writing

Labels: arran oatcakes, cheese, colourshemedesigner, Food Bloggers Conference, Photography Workshop

posted by Janice @ 23:02 7 Comments

Food Bloggers do Social Networking in Ayrshire

Chapter 2 - Food Bloggers do Social Networking with Colin Kelly

No Food Blogger Conference would be complete without a session on social media.  At the Taste of Ayrshire Food Bloggers Conference we were joined by Colin Kelly a journalist and social media trainer.   Here are a few key messages that Colin shared with us:

• Build a community
• Start a conversation
• Using You Tube increases your Google Score (because they own You Tube)
• People trust Twitter recommendations because people are accountable, they are on Twitter as themselves
• 55-65 year old females are the biggest growing demographic on social media
• 20 minutes a day is the most you should spend on social media (err I think I must be doing something wrong - ha ha!)
• Do you have a primary objective?
• It takes time
• Be human
• Give the audience a say over what you put on your blog e.g. what would you like me to cook, blog, bake?
• Have Facebook events
• Use the customisable tabs on Facebook to integrate your blog into Facebook
• Put yourself in your customers shoes
• Posts with pictures are 30% more engaging
• Finish your blog posts with newsletter sign up, follow by email etc
• Use Google + gives you an advantage in google ratings
• Create a consistent style/brand

 In the spirit of making the post more engaging here are some of the Food Bloggers at the conference.

And here are Jacqueline, Tinned Tomatoes and Louise, Please Don't Feed the Animals   you might want to visit their blogs to get a different perspective on the conference.  You may also recognise some of the photographs as we are a caring, sharing bunch :)

What are your tips for social networking/social media?

Chapter Three coming very soon (almost written)

Labels: Colin Kelly, Food Bloggers Conference, Please Do Not Feed the Animals, Social Networking Tips, Taste of Ayrshire, Tinned Tomatoes

posted by Janice @ 19:47 6 Comments