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Sometimes we put blinders on. We focus on exactly what we want to do, learn exactly how to do it, and nothing is going to distract us.
While there are so many situations in life where this is advantageous when it comes to photography and styling it can cause us to miss out on loads of helpful information.
I’ve been an advocate for learning outside of your niche since I began styling and photographing food over 11 years ago.
I call it the Apply It Back method. It’s when you learn about something else and then you apply what you learned back to your own photography and photography niche. It’s a way to grow your skill and more importantly evolve your individual style.
Here’s how it works for me:
Landscape photography helps me see my horizon on food sets and keep the scene aligned.
Learning about freezing motion in sports and nature photography helps me with food and drink action like pours and sprinkles.
Reading interior design books gives me ideas for color coordination and scenes.
Studying color psychology helps me with propping.
Floral design helps with color coordination and styling table scenes.
People and portrait photography helps me with photographing my own hands in shots.
Learning about natural light patterns and how to control them helps to improve even my phone photos and videos.
Travel gives me ideas for how to reflect real life in my photos.
There are so many things to absorb outside of simply how to do food photography. All of our experiences and studies regardless of the focus and topic can be applied back to our art.
Learning about other things isn’t time wasted. In fact, it can serve as an enjoyable creative break when you are feeling stuck or burned out.
