Join photographer Marte Marie Forsberg to learn her inspired approach to lifestyle photography! Whether you're photographing for a blog or Instagram, or simply want to capture a beautiful meal, you'll learn how to capture stunning stories in a styled yet natural way.

This 20-minute online class is all about capturing a story, giving you tools and tactics to capture everyday moments with artistry. Taking place at her thatched English cottage, lessons touch on inspiration, styling, shooting, and editing — so that you can successfully capture a setting, its food, and the life surrounding it.

Beautifully shot, full of inspiration, and brimming with insights, this class is perfect for beginning and pro photographers alike. It's a welcome reminder of small moments that are truly perfect.

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What You'll Learn

Visual storytelling. Marte Marie uses light and simple compositions to create beautiful, evocative food and lifestyle photos. In her series of lessons, she invites you to her beautiful cottage to discuss her artistic process. You will follow along as Marte Marie selects, styles, and shoots two scenes – a "breakfast story" in her kitchen, and an "afternoon tea story" in a local pub. Whether you are creating visuals for an Instagram feed, a website, or for print photo journalism, you will leave Marte Marie's lesson inspired by this detailed look at how she creates her work.
Creating your own. Marte Marie will ask you to submit three photographs that tell an "afternoon tea story" of your own, however you conceptualize it. The setting can be any environment you choose and the details are yours to decide. You can use whatever camera you have on hand – even if it's one attached to an iPhone! Afterwards, if you want feedback, you will have the option of uploading your work to share with Marte Marie and the rest of the class.
Dynamic still-life photography. You will learn how to highlight people, capture conversations and showcase flavors using Marte Marie's simple photographic techniques. She will explore how mood boards keep her eyes fresh and inspire her color and light decisions, and she will share the secrets she relies on to make her best shots "come alive."
Working with light. Light is the most important tool that Marte Marie uses to tell her visual stories. You will learn how to "live in the shadows," to create moody works by playing with light, directing where it hits, or blocking it out entirely. Marte Marie will discuss simple ways to test lighting to build the kind of atmosphere that lets your subject take center stage.
Finding the story. You will watch as Marte Marie demonstrates how she hones her visual stories to express only the most pertinent and important details. She will discuss how she keeps compositions simple but effective, simmering down the essence of an on-location journalism photo or beefing up an at-home still-life to create beautiful, focused photographs every time.
Food styling. Marte Marie shapes her visual story with keywords that keep her photographs on-message. You'll learn important visual style rules like the "element of three" and how it helps make even quick compositions feel dynamic. Marte Marie will also touch on how the height of objects plays into how she styles her work, and how she uses household items to keep setting and lighting simple. Using her tips, you'll keep the focus on your food – not the background!
Simple tools. Marte Marie's method is quick, simple, and approachable, and her toolkit is the same. She will touch on how she uses iPhones and cheap camera lenses to capture images for web and print – and what mobile applications she depends on to process her work on the fly, too!
Depending on the details. In food and lifestyle photography, visual details can make or break an image. Marte Marie will bring your attention to the smallest choices she makes – about crumbs, flour, and butter texture – that help create rustic, moody shots and threads them together to make a visual story out of individual photographs.

Evan Edinger

Travel photographer and videographer

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