WEST ELM PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP WITH EMILY QUINTON

Photo+Styling: Lindé Davies

Photo+Styling: Lindé Davies

Photo+Styling: Lindé Davies

Photo+Styling: Lindé Davies

Photo+Styling: Lindé Davies

Photo: Lindé Davies

Today I attended a very inspirational Photography Workshop hosted by Emily Quinton at the new West Elm Store on Tottenham Court Road.

It was a lovely and informal setting and I learnt *a lot a lot*!  Not only about framing, composition and lighting when you style are styling, but also about how to keep the magic of photography alive.  Take time out everyday to take a beautiful photo.  If you can't take the photo beautifully then rather don't take it. Post more/ daily on Instagram, follow more people, interact, take part in competitions etc etc etc.

We also covered how to edit your images on an Iphone and Emily shared some new apps to try out.  I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 so not all the apps were relevant to me -but here are some that were mentioned:  Pictapgo,  Camera Plus,  VSCO cam (android) as well as a Photoshop add on called Radlab which I will try out soon.

I took my SLR along with the hope to snap away some pics  - but alas, except for making the one appearance on the table, I never even took the lens cover off.  This is something I want to improve on this year - to take more photos with my SLR and get more comfortable with using it and not treating it as this precious monstrosity always hiding in my bag!

There is another workshop next Saturday and I can definitely recommend it if you are interested in styling and photography.  Emily was great and hosted a really interesting talk.

There was time to play around with some props and take some photos - and this is one thing I do struggle with a bit - when you are forced to choose something.  I am drawn to things and then I'll photograph them; so this was a slight challenge to be given plenty of wonderful material but then find what it is I am drawn to.  Something else I want to challenge myself with this year, to step outside my comfort zone and photograph things I normally wouldn't.  I even took a bold bright pic (dad this one's for you!) which was already styled by one of my fellow workshop goers.

All photos were styled by me (except bright yellow pic) and taken on my Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited afterwards in Picsart.


Images via Lindé Davies