Kamile Kave Food Photography Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

On today’s podcast, I talk with Rachel Korinek of Two Loves Studio, an Australian food and still life photographer based in Vancouver. As a photographer, Rachel is known for bright and uplifting visual storytelling. As a teacher, her love for educating has inspired her to share her knowledge with both novice and expert alike through her insightful blog, e-books and courses. Rachel has worked for clients like Nikon, Huff Post, West Elm, Aldi, and many more. In this episode, besides talking about Rachel’s decade-long journey working in the commercial photography industry, we deep dive into the topic of building a great food photography portfolio.

Intro (0:00 - 1:10)

Rachel’'s Background (1:10 - 2:38)

How Rachel got into food photography (2:38 - 4:02)

Is food photography still exciting for Rachel after doing it for 10 years? (4:02 - 5:29)

How Rachel balances her busy work schedule (5:29 - 9:23)

Rachels work with clients and focus on education (9:23 - 10:54)

When Rachel moved from Australia to Canada (10:54 - 11:23)

How to build a good portfolio (11:23 - 20:22)

Why Rachel has a B&W portfolio on her website (20:22 - 24:44)

Does Rahcel plan her non-client shoots to fit into her portfolio? (24:44 - 26:08)

Does Rachel work with a food stylist on her portfolio work? (26:08 - 26:46)

Rachel’s experience working with a prop stylist (26:46 - 29:03)

Will Rachel be joining TikTok? (29:03 - 30:33)

How and why Rachel started her courses (30:33 - 33:18)

The types of courses Rachel offers (33:18 - 38:13)

Are Rachel's courses for beginners or more experienced photographers? (38:13 - 42:20)

What Rachel finds most fun in her work (42:20 - 44:20)

Rachels Recommendations (44:20 - 47:41)

Rachels Socials (47:41 - end)

On today’s podcast, I talk with Heather Barnes, a Food Photographer and Stylist based out of Austin,Texas. Heather is known for her romantic feeling images and her blog, Mrs. Barnes, where she shares simple, seasonal recipes and how to throw a dinner party as a modern woman. While Heather enjoys working with small local businesses, she has also worked with big names such as Ghirardelli and Bobs Redmill. Today we talk about her journey to becoming a food photographer, the differences between working for small or big clients, and shooting/styling ice cream.

Intro (0:00 - 0:53)

Heather's Background (0:53 - 4:11)

How Heather's background in Fashion Photography has influenced her now (4:11 - 7:19)

How Heather transitioned from hobbyist photography to client work (7:19 - 13:15)

Heather’s Client workflow (13:15 - 19:23)

Pre-work deposit and the troubles with licensing (19:23 - 24:37)

Why Heather prefers her clients to be on set (24:37 - 26:11)

Does Heather make a selection with or without her clients present (26:11 - 31:03)

Heather’s experience with photographing ice cream (31:03 - 36:02)

Heather’s experience with working with big clients like Ghirardelli (36:02 - 40:22)

Heather’s current work on an unusual foraging cookbook (40:22 - 44:59)

What Heather finds fun in her work (44:59 - 47:15)

Heather’s go-to recommendations (47:15 - 51:07)

Heathers advice for a beginning food photographer (51:07 - 54:10)

Heather’s Socials (54:10 - end)

In this episode I talked to the lovely food photographer Riham Magdy from Dubai. Riham has found her niche in food photography, photographing levitating images of food, bringing a viewer into the magical scenes. I just love her photos and was super curious to learn how such magic is created. So I was very happy to jump on a call and talk all about it with Riham. Besides her exciting behind the scenes, we also talked about creativity, how it is to be working in Dubai and starting as a food photographer.

You can find Riham’s portfolio on her Instagram @foodoshoot_by_riham

In this episode I am speaking with a wonderful food stylist Suzy Eaton. Suzy has an extensive list of very well known clients such as Walmart, Subway, Coca cola, KFC and Dr. Oz. She also teaches food styling, and I’ve been following her amazing “Master the Art of Food Styling” course, which has so many amazing tips and tricks and helped me to improve my styling skills. I figured I’ll try and ask her to join the podcast, and yayy she was more than happy to jump on a call with me. So I am very happy to share this episode with you guys, in which we obviously talk a lot about food styling, Suzy shares how she established herself in the market, learned the foodstyling and some nice tips and tricks. We also talk a lot about commercial photoshoots, how they work, who is involved, and how to keep a good flow going between the food stylist, chef and photographer.

Recommended courses and learnings: Rachel Korinek & Joanie Simon.

You can find Suzy on Instagram @suzyeatondesigns , her youtube channel , or her facebook account.

Suzy also was kind enough to share with you guys the coupon code for $100 off her “Master the Art of Food Styling” course, which you can find on my website in episode’s notes here.

In this episode I am speaking with food photographer Darina Kopcok. She is also a food photography teacher at Vancouver Institute of Media Arts and contributing writer to PRO EDU and Digital Photography School. When researching stock photography I came across her article “Selling photos how to make money from photography” . It was an inspiring and educational article to me, and so I decided to invite Darina on my podcast. She tells us a lot about stock photography, how to approach it, what is the difference between micro stock and premium stock, what stock companies are out there and more.

Inspiration sources for Darina:

Lauren Caris

Two Loves Studio

The Bite Shot

Christina Peters “Food photography club”,

We Eat Together

Andrew Scavani

Delores Custer Food styling

Darina also offers mentorship, has an e-book about food styling and a lovely blog about food photography. All that you can find on her website Gastrostoria.

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Follow me @kamilekave for food photography inspiration

Today’s lovely guest is Emma Ivane, a talented cake artist, business coach and a photographer from Finland. I’ve been following her beautiful Instagram for a while now, and I decided to finally reach out and talk to her, because

Emma has worked with the brands such as Nespresso, Dr. Oetker, and Baileys, and is one of the authors of a worldwide published book “Designer Cake Decorating - Written by 12 of the world’s best cake designers”. I was sure she’ll have lots to tell us. Emma’s strong branding and positioning is what led her to many exciting opportunities and this is what we talk mostly about.

Here’s the points we touched upon:

- How Emma switched from master of science in technology to cake artistry and food photography. She’s been photographing food for 6 years now.

- Emma’s ways of becoming better in food photography. Learning by trial and the pressure to become good in food photography fast.

- We talk a lot about the importance of positioning and branding for creative business. “Becoming something you are known for.” What is your story?

- Get clients in where you specialise in. There’s always someone who needs a specialist in something, and more opportunities will come your way.

- Emma’s paintings (yes, she is a painter too!) exhibition in Miami and her cake styling exhibition in Finland.

What that inspires Emma: Robin Sharma, Mindvalley, Carolina Grunér.

Find Emma’s work on her Instagram @emmaivane.

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Follow me @kamilekave to stay tuned about new podcast episodes, and to get more food photography tips!

In today’s episode I’m talking with a wonderful food blogger and photographer Anna Wierzbinska, also known as Anna Banana. Anna manages a successful food blog, she photographs for many restaurants and brands and manages her own Instagram account with 35k followers. I had such a lovely conversation with Anna, and we dive into so many interesting topics like working with local brands and restaurants, shifting mindset during crises, sponsored posts, building experience and professionalising business. Here’s further what we’ve discussed:

- Anna tells us how she became a food blogger & photographer.

- She shares her path in learning food photography & it’s business that includes names of some specific books (links below).

- We talk about professionalising the food photography business. That includes being confident with the pricing, using terms & conditions etc.

- We talk about the importance of building a network and connecting with colleagues in the industry.

- We talk about how we both started to build a portfolio, gain experience and build a network of clients through work with restaurants.

- Anna shares how important it is to have regular clients.

- We talk about shifting mindset during the crises. Thinking of creative ways to potentially start relationships with businesses.

- Anna shares about what it means working with small local brands.

- Our thoughts on stock photography

- Sponsored posts & interactions on Instagram on it. The importance of learning what your audience likes.

Mentioned books: “Plate to Pixel” by Helene Dujardin, “Setting up a Successful Photography Business: How to Be a Professional Photographer” Lisa Pritchard

Mentioned course: Food Blogger Pro

Instagram: @twolovesstudio, @thebiteshot

Find Anna on instagram @anna_wierzbinska and blog annabanana.co

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Follow me on Instagram to keep up to date about the latest podcast episodes @kamilekave

In this episode, I am talking with a Romanian food writer & published author Irina Georgescu. Irina has recently published her passion project Carpathia a book about Romanian cuisine, which she is so fascinated about it. We spend a whole conversation digging into behind the scenes of this project that took about 3 years from the idea to actually having a book in stores.

Irina tells us:
How it all starts. Which is tons of research and understanding the market trends. The importance here is to see whether there is a market gap & interest in this kind of subject.
Putting the business plan
Finding the literary agent (without an agent, difficult to find the publisher). Irina tells us she wrote 200 emails until she finally found the right agent. That was many no’s but you only need one good YES.
Then we move to an exciting part of behind the scenes of photography of the recipe book. Especially the organisational part.
I learned that a profession such as prop stylist exists, so that’s something to consider in a bigger projects!

Find episode notes & links on my podcast website.

In today’s episode I am speaking with the wonderful Lauren Carris. I was so excited for this conversation because I’ve been following her for a while now and I am completely in love with her images. Lauren is a great food photographer and educator, dedicating a lot of her time teaching others about the behind the scenes of the food photography world. So as you would expect, there is a long list of interesting tips that Lauren taught me during our conversation. I can’t wait to share them with you.

We talk about:
- Her road from a job in tax to becoming a food photographer.
- Balancing educating others and doing the client work
- Building the long-term relationship with the clients
- The importance of a good website (SEO & portfolio) in finding the clients
- Having a business coach, which helped Lauren to shape the vision and put ideas into clear plan and messaging for her audience. We get more into details her how the coaching helps and works.
- Pricing. There’s no magic formula, but a lot of good tips from Lauren how to think about and set your pricing.
- We talk about the licensing fee, tips on how to calculate it, and the way to educate the clients about it. Lauren recommends to use Getty images price calculator & read the article in Fstoppers about the licensing
- Importance of email marketing not only for education work but also for the photography clients, which helps you to keep on the radar and build the long-term relationships.
- We discuss the upcoming importance of videography as additional service for food photography clients.

The book Lauren recommends to read (which I already started reading and it’s great!): Light Science and Magic by Fil Hunter, Paul Fuqua, and Steven Biver.

Influencers Lauren recommends to follow for inspiration:

@thebiteshot

@twolovestudio

@thelittleplantation

@we.eat.together_

You can find Lauren’s portfolio here.

What is also super exciting is that Lauren very soon will launch her teaching platform Food Photography Academy where she will build a community and constantly release new educational videos related to food photography & it’s business. Find more information here.

Follow me @kamilekave to keep up to date about the podcast! I also share lots of behind the scenes of my work :)

In this episode I am speaking with a lovely food photographer Ingrid Hofstra. I found Ingrid through her gorgeous travel photography images, and couldn’t just wait to speak to her. Not only because of her beautiful portfolio but also because this talented photographer has been published in magazines like Ellen Eten, National Geographic, and Harper’s Bazaar. So I thought she’ll have lots to tell me, and indeed the stories I heard from Ingrid were amazing!

In this episode we dive into a completely new topic for me: Travel Food Photography. Ingrid shares with us how this game works, and I think it’s extremely fascinating. We talk about how to land the assignments, why she likes this type of photography so much, and what equipment she takes with her.

We also touch a topic of how to become better in food photography. Ingrid mentioned the food photographers that helped her to grow: @foodbandits (funny enough, in episode 3 of the podcast I speak with Suus from Foodbandits) and @evakosmosflores.

My apologies in advance as you can hear Miles walking all around in the background. He was very curious and loved Ingrid :)

Finally, as always asked for inspiration artists for Ingrid and the artists she mentioned are:

Toby Mitchell

Chantal Arnts

Nicole Franzen

Annie Leleibovitz

Luisa Brimble

You can follow Ingrid on her Instagram @ingridhofstra & find her portfolio on her website.

Thanks so much for tuning in. For updates about the podcast follow me on my Instagram @kamilekave !