Food Photography
Andrew Scrivani
Lessons
Day 1
1Introduction to Food Photography Class
11:54 2What Is Food Porn?
37:14 3Food Photography Lighting
21:14 4Food Photography Props
58:45 5Food Styling Props
16:39 6Food Styling Tips
37:49 7Food Styling Tools of the Trade
08:31Camera for Food Photography
30:26 9Food Styling Tutorial: Spaghetti and Pudding
20:06 10Food Styling Q&A
16:16 11Gear Q&A
16:56 12Food Photography Camera Settings: Do The Math
23:48 13Understanding Light Meters and Settings
29:08 14Shooting Demo: Dessert Photography
31:33 15Student Shoot: Bread Photography
15:54 16Student Shoot: Soup Photography
16:31 17Student Shoot: Pastry Photography
13:08 18Student Shoot: Sandwich and Soup Handheld
17:43 19Workflow Prep to Post
45:16 20Post Demo
27:07 21Food Blogging Tips with Shauna Ahern
36:59 22Q&A With Shauna Ahern
29:57 23The Top 10 Questions for Every Food Photographer
28:32 24Food Photography Business Q&A
33:43 25Photo Copyright
19:22 26Advertising Your Photography Business
36:57 27The Artist vs. the Business Person
36:21 28Tips and Tricks for a Budget Shoot
23:07 29Tips for Food Photography with Phone
38:59 30Student Critique
12:16 31Facebook Contest Winner Critique
16:11 32Q&A and Parting Wisdom
16:05Day 2
Day 3
Class Description
AFTER THIS CLASS YOU’LL BE ABLE TO:
- Understand the business aspects of food photography, including food styling, pricing, negotiation, marketing, and copyrights
- Shoot on a budget with a point-and-shoot camera or a smartphone
- Prepare for your shoot and organize your materials
- Learn food styling for various types of food, from soup to pastry
- Write about food and create a blog
ABOUT ANDREW’S CLASS:
The food on your plate looks absolutely scrumptious. But somehow, when you take a picture of it, the result is less than appetizing. Great food photography isn’t just about taking a shot of a delicious dish, it’s about carefully selecting and styling your food, appropriately using natural light or studio light, and editing your images to leave viewers hungry.
World-renowned commercial photographer, food stylist, and New York Times columnist Andrew Scrivani will teach you the essentials of preparing your food before the shoot, using the right camera and lighting gear, and performing touch-ups in post-production. He’ll also give you expert advice regarding the business of food photography, so you can turn your hobby into your dream job. Special guest Shauna Ahern of the Gluten Free Girl blog and book fame will talk about food blogging, recipe writing, and growing your online audience.
This class will help you:
- Select, prepare, and style your food so it looks professional and enticing.
- Find and use the best gear for a food photo shoot.
- Choose the right camera settings.
- Create an optimal workflow and post-production process.
- Deal with low indoor light by using inexpensive lighting equipment.
Whether you’re a seasoned professional looking for food photography tips to expand your skillset or a novice using nothing more than a smartphone, this mouth-watering workshop will provide you with the strategies, tips, and techniques needed to captivate your viewers and reach your food photography goals.
WHO THIS CLASS IS FOR:
- Anyone who wants to become a professional food photographer or a photographer who wants to add additional revenue to their business by venturing into food photography.
- Those who love taking pictures of food, but aren’t sure how to turn a hobby into a career or business.
- Those who want to know how to choose the right food and style it appropriately for great food photography.
- Bloggers who write about food but need high-quality images to go with their written content.
- People who like to photograph food for their own pleasure, but want to take better, more professional-looking images.
Ratings and Reviews
Brendan McGuigan
This was one of the best workshops I've ever taken in my life – in person or digital. Andrew is a fantastic teacher – if I hadn't known his first career was as a professor, I would have guessed it based on the quality of teaching. He had a casual attitude, sense of fun, and easy-going manner of speech that made him immediately accessible, and a joy to watch for the entire sixteen hours (which I completed in just under three days). For me, the main value of the workshop was to be found in the first day. Andrew went through his artistic process, dropped tips along the way, and gave a real sense of how his brain works when thinking about a scene – everything from creating the food, to styling, to composing the shot. I happen to love his use of light, and getting an insight into how he crafts his backlighting and bounce was very useful. Day two had some nuggets of wisdom – and some great hands-on – but much of the tool tutorials and post-production workflow aspects will be less useful to those who are already professional photographers looking to branch out into a new discipline. Still, one of the standouts to me was seeing just how little he does in technical post – a good reminder that incredible shots can be captured 90% in camera. The segment with a food blogger, although not relevant to me, was captivating and insightful, and the rapport between Andrew and Shauna James Ahern was delightful. Day three was great for anyone needing a refresher on the business aspects, and some of specifics of the food photography business were good to hear in detail. For those already selling their work, who are familiar with licensing agreements, copyright, stock, etc., this may be redundant, but it's always good to be reminded of these things by an expert at the top of their game. Andrew's conclusion nearly had me in tears. He is obviously an incredibly passionate, giving, and humble artist, who not only feels blessed in his own life, but feels compelled to pass on some of his good fortune. That's a wonderful thing to see, and honestly gave me a nice boost of motivation to up my personal game. Throughout the workshop I found Andrew's lesson plan spot on. His in-studio students asked great questions, and the questions selected from the online audience filled in a lot of the blanks. While I may have liked to have seen a bit more hands-on from Andrew – just to get more of a feel for his process – all in all I felt like this covered everything I was hoping to gain from it. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to get into food photography – whether you're a complete novice or a seasoned professional photographer who wants to explore food. Whether it's for advertising, editorial, stock, or blogging, he really covers it all, exploring both broad concepts and very specific practical applications. I can't rave enough about this. If you're at all on the fence, buy it. You'll be glad you did.
a Creativelive Student
Day one was a good investment for me. After that... not so much. Not sure this is really about photography. For sure, Andrew is an artist, he's great at communicating the art of the food, the art of proping, but explanations about how to make images is very simplistic. For instance he makes a pretty big blunder explaining the "math" of photography. He says his favorite setting is f4/125th, at iso 100. His grasp of lighting beyond window light and reflectors left me a little flat. He does a good job of explaining his style -- which in spite of it all -- I like. And to be fair, Andrew is an editorial food photographer. If you're interested in opening a food photography studio and doing product work -- this may not be the class for you. I think this is a good class for cooks and bloggers who want to make images of their food. If you're a beginning food shooter, you will find the information about styling and proping useful. Having watched some of Pennhy de Los Santos and Andrew, the editorial people seem to over simplify lighting and camera and lens work. At the same time, there seems to be a theme emerging in photography and that is that it's really almost better to be highly versed in another discipline and come to photography through the back door... (e.g. a rock climber who picks up a camera, a conservationist who decides to document the changing landscape and wildlife, a cook who just so happens to like taking images). Photography, for its own sake, seems to be a thing of the past. At the end of the day the class is $129 -- so... not like you have to take out student loans to get something out of it. This guy is likable, and sincere, and makes a huge effort o be helpful to anyone interested in shooting food -- and it's hard to ignore his personal success.
Ben Adams
Andrew's class is excellent, through-and-through. The mere handful of negative reviews focus on the underwhelming results of his test shots in the class -- they're kind of missing the point. The instructor's test shots aren't about the final product, they're used to tell about the process, and boy does he do that. This course is comprehensive and concise. Scrivani talks about the ins-and-outs of the job itself (how much is styling, how much is buying the food or preparing it yourself, how much is just pure photography) and furthermore gives insight as to the nature of the business and pricing. He is clearly a strong teacher with an ear for student input, and it shows. He explains things in stages so that he doesn't 'lose' a novice student, but doesn't dumb it down so much that he's wasting the time of veteran photographers. Within each lesson (let's say he's describing the function of aperture, something most photogs already know) he's keen to pepper in little details about equipment, styling, or lighting so that there's useful information for a broad scope of the audience. The other courses, taught by Penny De Los Santos, are a joke compared to this one. De Los Santos I'm sure is a nice person, and she produces wonderful work, but her course provides little practical information and she effectively ignores her audience saying only "yeah this isn't good", making some unnamed adjustment, then "yeah okay this works" while the audience just sits there wondering what's even going on. Andrew Scrivani is very different. In one student-photographed shot, he recognizes that a more experienced pupil can easily snap his 'handheld' photo challenge, and so he throws them a curveball -- take an additional shot with a different background or styling -- and communicates clearly to the audience why he's changing the task and what the significance is. For a novice pupil, he assists her with the camera and explains to the audience the importance of getting settings right. All told, I had been unimpressed with CreativeLive's tutorial offerings until I stumbled upon this fantastic instructor. Yes, some of the information is dates (iPhone photography has taken giant leaps forward since 2013) but the practical information (lighting, budget options, business advice) is all salient and relevant. Andrew, if you by chance read these reviews, I'll say once more what was true the moment I started watching -- this course is excellent.