SF Follow Up…

I have so many reasons to want to visit San Francisco. I have been visiting there since I was 12. My uncle and mentor, George, was one of the originals of the Haight Ashbury crowd back in the late 60′s and has never left. I have wonderful friends there including Foodwishes.com’s Chef John and his wonderful wife, SFQ’s Michele and my buddy Alexis from Fearless Critic. Even my pal, former SF denizen, Pichet Ong makes his influence felt when he’s not around paving the way for great restaurant reservations and recommendations via constant texts and emails. It truly feels like a home away from home.

This visit was obviously  business related and the workshops I was teaching at the terrific Contigo Restaurant went superbly. We were blessed by the weather gods and it was almost too sunny and warm to use the beautiful outdoor atrium at our venue. But all this being said, it was the reaction of the participants that was the most gratifying part of my trip.

Both our Saturday and Sunday groups were engaged, energetic and worked hard physically and creatively to make great pictures.

Both groups embraced the difficulties of shooting ugly foods, absorbed the information I was sharing about the business of photography and stood tall during the critiques of their work at our conclusion. This last part may have been the hardest and most daring. Consider handing over your card of unedited, unprocessed images to be critiqued by a teacher and group of other photographers. The thought of it even makes me sweat. I applaud their willingness to grow and learn and put ego and self consciousness aside for the sake of their art. Bravo!

One of our participants, Paola Thomas, wrote a terrific breakdown of what we did on Sunday and included her shots and how they were related to what we were learning.

Some of our other shooters were:

Stephen from Kitchen Beard

Natasha from Non-Reactive Pan

Irvin from Eat The Love

Annelies from La Vie En Plat

Anonymous SF Food Blogger Tummy Morsels

Kimberley from Edible San Francisco

Johanna from Low Sodium Blog

Marjorie from This Is My Dinner

Lydia Chen & Craig Lee

Thanks to all and thanks to Foodista and Andie Mitchell for publicizing the event.

Stay tuned for our next event scheduled for late June in Seattle and my debut workshop in my newly refurbished NY studio in July. And…don’t forget IFBC in Portland in August.

PHOTO CREDIT: Paola Thomas