Though there are ample resources on each subject, two of the most challenging concepts to teach, in my opinion, are the topics of styling and composition.
These are areas where the ‘rules’ are of course helpful, but where ‘feeling’ and ‘an internal sense of design’ are the more powerful tools, or abilities.
These come naturally to some, while, for others who may get the ‘rules’ down, their work is still missing ‘something.’
Even so, I believe that with constant practice and dedication, one can successfully learn these disciplines.
I have found that much like cooking, for me, I do best when I am standing next to and actively participating in the learning process. Hands on, where tiny (and monumentally important) subtleties can be learned.
For as much as I enjoy teaching via my online workshops, I greatly love teaching one on one, hands on, through tailored shoots in my studio.
Still, for others, it may be a matter of expanding their already innate sense of design into new areas of industry, such as Violet, who is already an incredibly capable, talented interior designer.
Violet wanted to expand her business into the world of prop and set design for print ads, commercials, catalogue work, and even feature films.
She contacted me and wanted to learn as much as she could from my own experience in those fields, as well as, from the perspective of what working with a photographer was like.
I ‘assigned’ Violet a series of small, manageable concepts to pull together, where she went out and shopped/propped/collected everything on her own, as well as pulling from my own supply of studio props.
Once in the studio, for 2 days we worked with what we had and crafted mini stories/vignettes/sets for the camera while discussing the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle nuances, of creating for the camera, and, on a smaller scale.
Violet came into this mentoring session with an already refined sense of design & color, but did not have much experience with food. As food styling, per se, was not her direction, we kept the foods parts of the shoots simple, and concentrated on strong graphic shape, texture & color with a still life approach.
In the end, she was able to leave with several new ‘collections’ to add to her newly developing portfolio, whereas I had the pleasure of combing elements that I love – design, styling, art directing and photography.
Here are a handful of images from our ‘sets.’
