Slaying the Flat Lay with Butterfly Project & Teacher Azrin

Slaying the Flat Lay with Butterfly Project & Teacher Azrin | Have you ever going through some cool pictures in Pinterest, IG or any other social media and thought to yourself 'I bet I can do that too!'?
What? No? Haha.
I do. Especially the flat lay pictures - so incredibly in love with flat lay pictures but no matter what I do (climbing stairs, tapping the camera to a tall chair and have so many ring lights etc), my pictures always turn up not satisfactory.
When The Butterfly Project Malaysia opened up the registration for a flat lay workshop, I immediately booked a place without even looking at my own calendar. And turned out that my aunt's family were flying down from Miri that weekend and I was supposed to be their tour guide. Hahaha. That was some drama that needs another post. 

Making my way to The Glasshouse at Seputeh, I was singing along the way - after dropping off my aunt's family at Mid Valley Mega Mall to shop for 4 hours (I told them to have some massage session just in case I ran late hahaha). I was singing as that will be my very first time visiting the ever so famous and glamorous looking event space ever! I vowed to take a lot of pictures there!
I arrived just as Mekonie and Sally were pulling up the driveway in their vehicles. Together, we made our ways to the venue of the workshop. 

Aptly named as Flat Lay Partea at the Delectable by Su, we were welcomed by the ever-smiling crew of the Butterfly Project Malaysia. Entering the quaint cafe, I was immediately transported to the filming set of Alice in Wonderland because the cafe was beautifully decorated similar to the Mad Hatter Tea Party. Super love the effort by The Butterfly Project Malaysia for the fancy tea time themed workshop!
The workshop was conducted in a super easy ambient, with the ever-gracious emcee of the day, Mr Leonard. He kept the workshop atmosphere light and that totally made learning even more fun! He introduced the whole group to Mamasan Tammy Lim (the mother of all magical beings in Malaysia), Ms Azrin, the teacher/ flat lay slayer of Malaysia and Ms Emi Goto from the AvantGarde Blooms where every flower is always blooming.

After a few welcoming words from Mamasan Tammy, Teacher Azrin took over with simple guidelines of taking a great flat lay picture - WITH ONLY YOUR SMARTPHONE. Not with any fancy camera or studio set-up but only with your smartphone (not that having the camera or a studio hurts but not all of us are lucky enough to have those, right?) 
Here are some tips for a great flat lay.

1. Think of your 'thing': Be mindful of the product to focus on, its theme and colour combination. You don't want your focus to be lost in the seas of too many items.
2. Lay down the background: Background plays an important role too - indoor, outdoor, colourful, monogram etc. To be safe, try to use a one-colour background as a starter. Once you get the hang of it, you may want to experiment with multicolours background. 
3. Pop the props: The props of a similar colour hue will help to boost the pictures. Be mindful of the props - don't overcrowd the background or you might lose focus
4. Change and arrange: Take a few dozen pictures and keep on changing the props, background the product in focus until you get the right location for each one. Some of us might feel like giving up after a few tries but that's the reality of getting a beautiful flat lay - try and error for a few dozen times. haha - kidding. 
5. Date the 'handsome' lighting: The assistance of the 'right natural lighting' will certainly elevate the picture. The use of some ring lights and light reflector will certainly assist you here. 
6. Keep it simple and neutral: Remember - don't overcrowd the picture!
7. Have fun!: Your inner calm and fun-self will translate in the pictures you take - so be happy and have fun!

Azrin showed us some of the basic moves of taking a great flat lay (she even slayed the picture on her first take! Talking about a professional!). 
After a Q&A session with Azrin, we were then asked to group ourselves to a group of three - so I automatically asked Mekonie and Sally to be in a group that we later named ROSÉ (Rawlins, Onie & Sally Eleganza) hahaha. 

The first task was to take a flat lay with anything that's available on the Mad Hatter themed tea party table. We were so eager to take and put everything in our picture. When we showed our pictures to Azrin, she told us to keep in mind about the focus of the photo and do not lose the product in the background. Just look at our pictures here. Haha. Amateur much?

After the first attempt, Azrin gathered everyone again and gave us more points on how to get a better flat lay (in other words, how to slay a flat lay). And then we were tasked again to take another flat lay, this time with some essential products from Althea to be featured in our pictures (Meringue puff from Althea). 

Taken the ques from Azrin, we kept our layout very simple and we focused more on the lighting. After the group presentations to Mamasan Tammy and Azrin, we realised that ours (the one in the middle) was the most simple layout as compared to others. We might have taken the tip of 'Keep it simple' too literally. Haha.

Guess what? Ours was announced as the best flat lay of the day because we managed to incorporate the items in focus effortlessly and the lighting was on point - those are the words from Azrin (I might have reworded the structure hahaha).

Thanks so much, Azrin for the recognition and thanks to Mamasan for the gifts! The icing on top was the knowledge that we brought back from the workshop. I have since been buying stuff that I think could assist me in taking a great flat lay (you can see from my IG (Rawlins GLAM) that I have been experimenting with flat lays). It certainly elevates my photo-taking to another level.

PS: You may use some mobile apps to edit the photos taken, but we were advised not to use a harsh filter as it might make the photo look 'unnatural'.

Here's another take of the winning photo that I've edited. Do you like the rustic looking photo here?

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