Food Photography Class with Syko Song At VVG Thinking
The first segment of our all day food photography workshop took place at Grace Wong's remarkable restaurant called VVG Thinking. (VVG stands for Very Very Good. Really.)For Syko and his wife Tracy Wang it began many days before with an enormous amount of planning, purchasing and packing up all the equipment we would need. While we brought some ingredients, the kitchen at VVG Thinking led by the fantastically talented chef Shu Ping did all the rest. Syko and I talked to our fifteen students about our philosophy of food 'styling' (less is best), lighting, and the impact of aperture and shutter speed on a picture. Then the students began to practice photographing simple ingredients. Finally Shu Ping bought out dishes she was preparing for our lunch, two at a time, so we could photograph them. Since the dishes were perfect in every way there was no need for any styling whatsoever.
After a most delicious lunch the class walked a few blocks to a tea house where we received a brief education in the art of tea processing. Then, while we enjoyed our tea, we listened to a quartet playing and singing traditional Chinese music using authentic period instruments. I took the opportunity to take photos of some of the students in our class :
While my students listened to the tea-talk and enjoyed the concert, I took pictures of them:
A special thank you to assistants Mindy, Joy and my son Jonathan:
A huge thank you to Chef Shu Ping for her hard work, wonderful smile, calm style and delicious food:
And most of all to Syko and Tracy for having the idea and making it come to life:
