Pinch of Yum Photography Workshop

If you’re a food blogger, the Pinch of Yum Photography Workshop is a must attend! I learned so much from the Pinch of Yum Team + wanted to share it below with you all!

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I rarely ever share personal things on the blog. I get it – you guys are here for food and that’s totally cool. I know it drives me crazy when I go somewhere for a recipe and I have to read a short novel or scroll through a million photos just to get the recipe.

Buuuut I really wanted to share this with all of you, especially since I get a lot of questions on blogging, how I got started, and my photos… maybe I’ll do a series on it? I’m not sure…

ANYWAYS. Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to go out to Minnesota to the gorgeous Pinch of Yum studio for their Tasty Food Photography Workshop. The tickets went on sale a few months ago, and I was literally waiting to click ‘Purchase’ the second they went on sale.

I missed out on this last year, and this year I did NOT want that to happen. I was super excited when I got a spot, and even more excited when my friend Madison was able to join me and share a space with me.

She is the blogger over at A Joyfully Mad Kitchen, and side note… if you haven’t tried her Healthy No Sugar Added Blueberry Muffins you’re missing out!!

We got in on Wednesday night, and the workshop was from 9-3 on Thursday + Friday. The workshop was broken up into 4 segments: Learning to shoot in Manual Mode on your Camera, Lighting, Styling + Editing/Post Processing. All things I needed help with.

One of the things that has always held me back in blogging was my lack of photography knowledge. I have been photographing in manual for a few months, but I basically just scroll around on the camera and hope for the best.

In general, I’m normally beyond underwhelmed with my photos.. so learning this was SO amazing. It was also great because I had just bought a new camera lens, so I needed to learn how to use it!

Even after the first session of practicing, I could tell I had already learned so much. These photos of the carrots and donuts were the first pictures I took during the workshop, and I think you can see a big difference between them + the pancake picture at the top or the muesli pictures below!

The lighting portion of the workshop was also super helpful. I unfortunately usually have to shoot using an artificial light simply because I don’t usually have enough time to cook/shoot before work, and by the time I get home the sun is setting. Sometimes I get to use the natural light on the weekends when I shoot which is always nice.

Lindsay was able to give me some great tips about how to capture that natural light in my teeny apartment. It’s dark 95% of the time where we are, but I have a few tricks that she suggested that I will definitely be using like bring the food up closer to the light (basically just stacking as many things as possible onto my coffee table to get it up higher, because right now it’s down low), and using lots of reflectors/diffusers.

(PS, this is Seven Sundays Muesli… which is freaking delicious. I can’t believe I’ve never had it before.) 

As far as food styling goes, I think this is where my strengths lie, but it was really nice to watch how Lindsay worked + set up her shots.

Sometimes I’m impatient and try to just throw the food together (usually because it’s for dinner and I want to eat), but it made me actually step back and look at the food to fix it to look juuuust right.

The last part of the workshop was learning how to edit in Lightroom which… I have no clue how I’ve lived without it. I’ve been editing photos on iPhoto, which has served me well for the past few years – but now it’s time for the real deal. Here are a few other photos that I took and loved!

 I was SO sad when I had to leave on Friday afternoon. I can’t stress enough about what an amazing experience this was. I’ve been a huge fan of Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro for years, so being able to come to this and learn from Lindsay was so incredible! She was extremely helpful, patient, and a great teacher.. and super sweet! (Also, she posted a photo of my photo on her IG stories which legit made my day).

If you are a food blogger and considering this workshop.. or just someone who likes to take photos. DO IT. Beyond everything I learned, this workshop instilled so much confidence in me.

My ultimate goal is to run this blog and do freelance recipe development/food photography full time. And for me, it’s not a question of if that’s going to happen, it’s simply when. 

Investing in this workshop and seeing that I can take beautiful shots of food only made me more excited and fired up to continue pushing for my goals. It isn’t always easy to get up at 5AM and work before my job, or spend my weekends doing this – but it is extremely worth it. At the risk of getting allll sappy on ya…When I get messages from people saying that I’ve helped them feel better because of my recipes, or that their family who typically doesn’t eat healthy loved one of my recipes.. it means the world to me.

And I think you can see that in my favorite picture from the workshop below. Ironically, it’s not of food.. and I didn’t even take it, my friend Madison did.. but you can see how happy I am in the photo. I’m smiling, relaxed, and confident.

Excited for what’s to come, and ready for whatever this blogging journey continues to hand me.