My Gourmet Traveller Experience

What a week!

It was with a healthy dose of nerves that I turned up for my first day on shoot with Gourmet Traveller, the experience I won on Menu for Hope.

I have to say the nerves lasted five minutes and then I was in the thick of it, and loving it.

I met some fantastic people, Emma Knowles, Gourmets Food Director was lovely and even prepared lunch for everyone the second day. Adelaide Lucas, (assistant food editor), that spent most of her day preparing the recipes from scratch, was inspiring in her speed and ability to answer my questions at the same time. I also quickly met Lisa Featherby (food editor) as she popped in.

On the shoot also was photographer Will Meppem, quiet yet very effective and props stylist Megan Morton, whom was fantastic at sharing some little secrets along the way.

The shoot was for the upcoming May editions cute little cookbook, the one that is attached to the cover each year.
Over the two days the team shot about 15 food images and a few extras that would be used for those pretty pages that the recipes or indexes may end up on.
Having worked as a freelance food stylist, I have some experience in a professional studio but I have to say nothing I have experienced before was like this. Emma and the team worked in the most harmonious, collaborative calm the entire time. No strange stylist techniques were used apart from a bit of bluetak (and that was not even on the food...), the food is as real and delicious as it looks, nothing was 'mucked' with just pure good food, very well cooked and styled and photographed with the utmost care.
I was truly impressed at how 'cheffy' the food was cared for, (it should be noted that both Emma and Adelaide are qualified chefs), the processes they went through involved also giving the recipe another run through to make sure it works perfectly for readers.
The image above is a shot in action, multiple angles were considered, over head is what is happening here, with the 'props' cream in a bowl, napkin and side in different balanced positions around the 'hero'.

I can't thank the entire Gourmet traveller team enough and of course Anthea Loucas the Editor for donating the prize.

Please feel free to fire off any questions that you may like to know about the shoot, I would love to share as much about this as possible.
The rest of my week was spent back in Melbourne mostly involved in the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival events. The Masterclasses have been inspiring, I can't wait to tell you about it, and tomorrow is Out of the Frying Pan, about food and the media. I attended last year also, and found it to be of the highest quality of food discussion, tomorrow the strange thing is that I am participating as a panelist about food blogs along with Ed and Stephanie. I know a few food bloggers will be there, so I look forward to some support from the audience, wish me -us- luck!

Edited - 4th March