Food styling and photography workshop

In the past few years, between May and June, Zurich has become a destination for food lovers. In different locations scattered around the city, the festival Food Zurich takes place. From venues with different Streetfood stalls to workshops focusing on food, there is a large variety of events on the calendar.

I was invited by my friend Sirio to take part in an evening workshop on food styling and photography. A professional food stylist and a photographer offered us some insights, tips, and tricks of their trade. I am always curious to learn how to improve my plating abilities and how to best photograph my dishes.

It was a fun evening, as we got to decorate our small pastry base tartlet with our choice of ingredients. We could choose from a vast selection of plates and then using our smartphones or cameras to take pictures. In the studio were also a variety of different surfaces, some real others just plain paper prints of structures like wood, stone or metal. On the photo, one can hardly notice the difference.

I chose an apricot tartlet as my base and decorated is half with crunchy chocolate crumble a slice of apricot and a thin broken piece of wafer covered in sesame seeds and a little leaf of red basil. The stylist then recommended covering the other half with thin slices of apricot instead of the single slice I chose. I think both look enticing. I like the presentation on the pale pink plate; it enhances the orange color of the tartlet and the apricot coulis. I believe in simplicity in plating – I am not a fan of messy plates, but some platings by other workshop attendants were very inspiring and well conceived as well.