The Great Cebuano FLATLAY Challenge

So my twin sister Jen told me that we would be paired up for a Flatlay competition, especially since I'm doing commercial food photography, I was like "Why not?". Unfortunately, when we got there, some contestants forgot their partner, so Jen ended up going solo and she had to do the challenge by herself.

So what is the Great Cebuano Flatlay competition about?

So basically it's a competition sponsored by Dimsum Break and SM City Cebu, and it is the first ever Cebuano Flat Lay Battle.

The winner will get

15k, 10k, 5k , 2k worth of gift certificates respectively

What is Flat Lay?

Flat Lay photography is an insanely easy way to showcase awesome items you own, tell a story, and wow your Instagram followers. Flat Lay is simple to do, can be shot almost anywhere, and can be as simple as emptying a knapsack or arranging the items on your desk.

To be honest, when I do food photography, I don't usually do it in a Flat Lay mode, since I want to give life to the dish I'm taking a photo of, you can check some samples I did here. But anyway, this is about the challenge, so I'll continue writing about it.

So there were four (4) categories:

1. Vegetable and Fruits

2. Dimsum Appetizer

3. Dimsum Main Menu

4. Dessert

Supposedly, each round, the contestant will be given 3 minutes to "shop" and prepare the food. But this was changed and extended to 10 minutes per round last minute.

They had to "shop" in the middle of the "arena".

After the contest proper, the audience will be given 60 seconds to vote. I helped JenJen here by cheering and telling the audience to vote for her, haha!

Before the competition started, everyone listened to the mechanics:

Let the competition begin!

My sister in my honest opinion had the best flat lay for round 1. The people I interviewed raved about her entry! But I had to leave and eat for a bit because I was starving.

For the 2nd,3rd and 4th round, it was getting competitive.

The thing about the competition was, some rules weren't properly stated and the camera used to take photos was the "official camera" so some contestants got to take their own photo with the official camera? while some were just taken by someone, confusing really - which was a but unfair, but oh well,what's done is done. Nonetheless, it was all clean fun!