Back in this post I very highly (but clumsily) suggested you check out The Island Gatherings, workshops run by Dearna Bond and Bec Wiggins, two local ‘gals with a passion for everything creative and a drive to share that with you.

On the weekend I attended their signature workshop about food styling and photography, to learn how to better compose food shots.

As it turns out though, my eye is still drawn to capturing faces and people in the midst of them doing their thing, rather than the delicious food that Dearna was preparing! #fail

Eventually I did get round to actually photographing the food!

We went through everything, from the basics of how to use your camera on manual, lighting and how to add shadow or illuminate parts with external things like coloured boards, how even objects within the home may influence the light cast, and how to utilise props and set a background to tell the story of what you are photographing.

Dearna and Bec are very easy people to work with, and rather than instructing you, they just guide you through their process, letting you experiment along the way to find your own rhythm and style.

I found, for example, that I prefer to not be so hands on when I style and prefer to take pictures as they spontaneously develop, only adjusting my angle in order to get the right light or focus for the photo.  Others who participated however, got right in there adjusting objects, involving others to provide human context like handling the food etc, and really crafting the scene to how they wanted to tell the story.

Photography is one of those areas of interest where no two people will be exactly the same in technique, focus of interest, or how they interpret the subject.  There is no hard and fast rule; the boundaries are only what you put up yourself.

Workshops like these are great in so many ways – sharing of ideas with like minded individuals, learning new techniques and skills, getting out there and connecting with people in your community, and networking most intimately.

Find The Island Gatherings here and keep up to date with their various events, Instameets and workshops held throughout the year.

Dearna and Bec also maintain personal blogs, found here and here.  Don’t forget to check out their Instagrams too, for lots of visual inspiration – Dearna, Bec, The Island Gatherings.