Food photography workshop with Roger Stowell

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a one day workshop with food photographer Roger Stowell, ably assisted by his comedy sidekick, son and fellow food photographer Sam Stowell. Roger usually runs courses in France where he has retired but has taken up residence in Sam’s commercial studio in south west London for two weekends to impart his knowledge and acecdotes of working in the food photography industry. Roger and Sam’s styles and editing processes are quite different so it was great to get advice and tips from both of them. The food was beautifully styled by Cara Hobday.

First of all, Roger talked the four of us through ingredient and action shots in the kitchen as Cara prepared perfect fried eggs. Our images were then reviewed with demonstrations from both Roger and Sam on editing techniques using Photoshop and Capture One software respectively.

After a delicious lunch of chicken and chorizo casserole, bountiful sides, pungent cheese and chat of escapee snails making a bid for freedom from Roger’s stock pot we went back to work looking at set up shots using only diffused natural light, exploring side and back lighting on subjects such as boiled eggs and lush salad leaves.  We had the run of Sam’s gorgeous props and backgrounds and had great fun working in pairs to create the set ups.

Roger encouraged us to keep playing and tinkering with the sets we created and not be afraid to break things down and try other compositions and props. Finally, we returned to the kitchen again as Cara assisted us in getting some good action shots of creme brûlée being prepared.

It was great to spend the day with others as passionate about food and photography and I am itching to hone the skills learnt last week so it’s lucky we have a long weekend coming up! All images were edited using Capture One.

For more information about Roger see his blog including information on his photography courses at Food, Photography & France