Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a photography workshop taught by food photographer Melissa Skorpil. I first met her at the Austin Food Blogger Association‘s Photography Camp last September.

While I’m pretty good at taking photos of dogs, cats, bugs, and flowers, I found food photography pretty darned complicated.

Just an hour or so of listening to Melissa at the photography camp showed me how to turn this:

into this:

I was hooked.

I was so impressed that I was eager to learn more. Melissa teaches a course, The Art of Food Photography, at Precision Camera & Video‘s Photography University. So the first chance I got, I signed up.

The class is divided into two sections. The first section is lecture-based. Melissa goes through the basics, including camera settings and equipment needed. The second part is all about hands-on shooting. Working with awesome food stylist and blogger Kristina Nichols-Wolter of Girl Gone Grits, she set up three stations. After each of us took a turn photographing the foods, they set up three more stations.

As with any equipment-heavy hobby, hands-on is so valuable, because you learn what your equipment can do and what you can do with it. Melissa was with us at every step, showing us how to get the best pictures and how to alter our camera settings and the lighting to get different kinds of shots.

Here are my favorite shots of the afternoon:

Sushi

Candy Hearts

Macarons (my most favorite)