
Food And Photograpy With Roger Stowell And Olia Hercules, Choosing Props
I could hardly believe it; I was in a car with Roger Stowell going to photograph a French market followed by a delicious meal cooked by Olia Hercules. This wasn’t happening just once, but for the next three days. This was day one of my food and photography weekend in France.

Hands On Teaching From Roger Stowell
We’d gathered earlier in the morning for Roger to give us a chat about our cameras and for him to understand how much everyone knew. Despite very mixed abilities we all set off with a firm idea of what to look for and how to capture it.
“Produce a picture from our trip to the market today…not a close up of fruit and vegetables but something that conveys atmosphere. Think spontaneous and fluid or alternatively, very composed and still.”

Photographing The Life Of The Market, Not The Food
Mr Glam, as a non participant, came along to enjoy the buzz of the market and to watch the world go by sitting in a café, as we paced and searched for our non food shots of the market. We often visit markets and food festivals together and glory in the produce, colours and variety that’s on offer. This time I was on my own, trying to resist the temptation of the shiny, dark oil slick purple plums or the intoxicatingly aromatic strawberries in a cascade of red and green.

Photographing People in the market: From top right, Fabulous Colours In The National Dress, A Very Determined Shopper, Buying Strawberries, A Colourful Character In The Queue
We’d arrived at La Rochelle market much later than we’d intended, the stall holders were on their last sales and beginning to pack up, but despite that they were friendly and nonchalant about having their photos taken.
After a good lunch right on the harbour, with the yachts going by and the smell of the salt water, we returned to our shared villa. Whilst some of the group enjoyed the pool, a couple of us spent time with Roger going through our photos and learning about post production in Photoshop. Advice was kindly given and technical points well explained, at the end of three days my photography had moved on enormously.

Musician Before Photoshop Musician After Photoshop
Five o’clock came round fast and Olia Hercules began her Masterclass, this was very hands on and as a result I learnt a huge amount. She described the menu to us and which technique we could learn from each step/dish and we volunteered for the things that most interested us individually.
In Olia’s Cook Book Mamushka there’s quite a bit of balancing sour, sweet, salt and I wanted to master that. In this instance it was done without quantities, but just relying on taste. With gentle encouragement, Olia got me to add and taste, add and taste, at each step telling her what I thought the mix needed until it was perfectly balanced. The balance is amazing, that point at which none of the sweet, sour, salt senses overwhelms the other gives an astonishing flavour that can’t be achieved by simple measuring of ingredients it’s about how salty is the salt, how strong the garlic, how sour the vinegar. It was a revelation.

Olia Cooking Ukrainian Cheese Pie
During all of this the beer and wine was flowing generously, especially as it was included in the cost of the weekend. The preparation of the dishes was done in the villa kitchen, but the main cooking was on the incredible wood fired set up in an open barn.

Outdoor Kitchen At Le Mazeau France
The steel plate of the plancha was ideal for grilling the thinly sliced aubergines until they were soft and full of smoky flavour, the wonderfully robust Argentinean grill with it’s chains and pulley system to raise and lower it over the heat of the fire allowed the steaks to sizzle and seal to perfection and the pizza oven cooked our whole Benito exquisitely.

Matt From Big In France In The Outdoor Kitchen
This was my cooking paradise; It’s a dynamic and theatrical way to cook with wonderful results.

Food Styled And Set Up For Photography
On our final day Olia cooked some small dishes, which we used as parts of a food styling set up with Roger who explained exposure, light, simplicity of set up, and the importance of the right lens. Despite attending other photography workshops, admittedly not as long as this one, Roger used both a visual and technical explanations, which certainly resonated for me.

Roger Stowell checking The Food Set Up
I came away from this weekend fired up with recipes, planning a foray into Photoshop and a few new friends. Mr Glam had spent a relaxing weekend by the pool, in the market and enjoying very long meals. He left thoroughly rested, entertained and very well fed.

Simple Set Ups Are Often The Most Effective
I booked this course with Big In France who are running various food and photography weekends as well as yoga retreats in the Vendee France. Check out cooking with John Torode or Jean Christophe Novelli or photography with Roger Stowell or Mark Benham. Make a long weekend in France an event.
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Wow. What fun! Such beautiful photos, of course!!
Your people photos are great GG! You’ve really captured natural movement so well 🙂
What a lovely trip! I am very jealous. I’ve met Olia at her book launch – she’s such a lovely person too! And yes, as others have said, your photos are fabulous!
What an amazing experience! I can’t see where you take your new photo skills. The sky is the limit!
Ooh that sounds like the perfect weekend. Food and photography tuition. I’ve always admired your photographs, but I reckon they have improved. I like the tips on getting atmosphere. I never think to photograph people. Did you ask before you took pictures? I’m never very sure of the etiquette.
This sounds like a dream experience!! Learning about not only food but photography as well! And your photos are fantastic!! I’d really love to do something like this on my travels!
Oh my, what an amazing experience. I would love this too and your final photo is superb, look forward to seeing more great photos on your blog.