Food, Photography and Smiles

A few weeks ago I was invited to a photography workshop taught by

award winning photographer, Paul Hames. 

I was invited by Joe Blogs Blogger Network and Simply Health.

What brought these three various things together?  Smiles.

 What makes people smile?  Food.

Y'all know how much I love my camera.  I love the way it connects me to the world.

My blog is obviously very photo heavy.  Which is why I'm so embarrassed to admit to anyone

that I always shoot on automatic.  I've tried manual a few times but I have a complete brain block.

So you can imagine my reaction when Paul instructed us first thing to turn our cameras to manual.

Terrified and excited, all at the same time.

For the next few hours, my camera was on manual!  I was very tempted to turn it back.

But, I resisted.  And I'm actually pretty proud of the results. 

After sitting us down and taking us through the basics,

we all walked over to the Kerb Food Market at King's Cross to

try out our new skills with the camera and have some lunch.

Before turning us loose, we had one more lesson on Capturing the Perfect Smile.

Here are the tips from Paul:

• Don’t say smile. This is the worst thing you can say. It will produce a false smile and is unimaginative.
• Engage with your subject. Make friends. Appear interested but also be yourself and genuine. Make your subject feel special and tell them how easy they are to work with. This will put them at ease.
• Clichés do work. Hands on hips makes someone project and feel more comfortable. You can also make them look round then back again with different smiles.
• Make sure you’re smiling and projecting positively yourself. It’s infectious.
• Say something funny. We all have a good joke or a story. This is otherwise known as an icebreaker. Do everything you can to get that smile.

  With beautiful models like these three, it wasn't hard at all to capture that perfect smile.

Melanie from Sunny in London

Sarah from The Wanderblogger

Mandy from Emm in London

Then it was time to check out the food offerings.

I'm much more comfortable photographing food rather than people.

But, I did find one willing subject.

This is what I had for lunch from Bill or Beak.

It was amazing!  Shredded duck and pork in a Vietnamese dressing with coriander,

chili and mint salad topped with tempura shallots.

It tasted even better than it looks which is fantastic.

It was a fabulous day which all combined to make

taking my camera from auto to manual not nearly as scarey as I expected.

Photo courtesy of Joe Blogs

 Simply Health provides affordable healthcare with a focus on exceptional personal customer service.

They have over 3 million customers and their services include Simply Dental Plan.

Thanks so much to Simply Health, Joe Blogs and Paul for a day full of smiles.

 Do you have any tricks for capturing the perfect smile?

Special Announcement: I have the date & venue for the next #LDNBloggersTea.

 Festive Afternoon Tea
Sunday, September 28th
£30 per person with champagne
Intercontinental Westminster

We will previewing this year's holiday tea for review.

Space is limited, so email me asap at Selena.Jones@me.com for your spot.

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 *I was invited to this photography workshop by Simply Health for the purposes of review.
 All photos, writing and opinions are my own.
As always, I promise to be open, honest and transparent with my readers.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.