“I’ve lost so many friends,” laments professional food photographer Chelsea Kyle, when I ask her how she budgets her time. “You can’t put anything on your schedule, unless you’re willing to say no to clients.”

Such is one of the downsides of being a highly sought freelance photographer and video director in New York City. However, Kyle has no regrets since leaving her full-time position at Condé Nast two years ago.

“Freelance is way better.” 

Specializing in food and product photography, Kyle has worked with brands including Apple, Kraft, Kroger, and La Croix. More recently, she’s been working for major beer and spirits brands such as Budweiser and Grey Goose. Last month, she shot Johnnie Walker’s latest product, Jane Walker, a limited edition whisky released for Women’s History Month.

I spoke with Kyle last week about her career and the challenges she’s faced as a freelance artist.

Getting Started

Kyle grew up in Connecticut, raised by her grandmother. While she has loved photography since a young age, Kyle was initially dissuaded by her family from pursuing a career in the arts. After high school, she reluctantly commenced a Bachelor of Nutrition at the University of New Hampshire.

“I barely made it through the first semester,” Kyle laughs.

She eventually left UNH while trying to convince her family she should be studying photography. At the time, Kyle was also working at a wedding dress shop, and started handing out her information to customers in the hopes of finding photography work. One customer hired her, then another, and suddenly Kyle was a working wedding photographer.

Kyle was still interested in pursuing an Arts degree, although the prerequisite requirements she would have to meet before specializing in photography were discouraging. A friend encouraged her to look into trade schools, and she enrolled in the New England School of Photography.

Unlike a traditional Arts degree, the two-year program she chose had a strong focus on developing technical skills. Looking back, Kyle is grateful she didn’t have to spend much time in a classroom.

“The hands-on part of it for me was so important,” Kyle says. “We didn’t have textbooks. You showed up with your equipment and your camera manual, that was your textbook.” 

While her friends completing Arts degrees engaged in subjective discussions about the nature of art, Kyle was out in the field, learning how to light, frame, and capture visually pleasing compositions.

“The first year we weren’t even talking about concept. Either it was appropriately done through technical reasoning, or it was a fail.”

In the program’s second year, Kyle landed an internship at Boston Magazine, and when she graduated, they offered her a full-time position as the photo editor’s assistant.

Going Freelance

While working at Boston Magazine, Kyle “found a niche” with the magazine’s online food section. It proved to be a strong foundation for her to start applying her new technical skills creatively and commercially. In 2015, four years after graduating, she was hired by Condé Nast after someone she’d worked with recommended her for a staff position.

The last few years have been a tumultuous time for print media, particularly Condé Nast. Kyle was grateful to be working, but budget cuts and staff redundancies meant that she was spending more time doing admin work than shooting.

“At one point I was the only person running the photo department for Epicurious,” Kyle says. “I was juggling so much that it really just made it harder to be creative.”

Despite her hectic schedule, Kyle also made time to moonlight on weekends. Through her tenure at Boston Magazine and Condé Nast, she’d built a strong network of contacts in the industry that regularly asked her to work with them. Eventually she decided to leave her job and become a full-time freelance photographer.

Finding Representation

During her transition to freelance food photographer, Kyle started searching for talent representation. Her portfolio quickly garnered the attention of multiple agencies, however, it was important to Kyle to find an agency that she could trust to represent her accurately in private correspondence with her clients.

“By the time you get to a meeting with reps in person, it’s really about how you vibe with that person, because they’re taking over a huge part of your income and your life,” Kyle says. “It was less about getting an agent, and convincing them to rep me, as it was finding the right person.”

Kyle eventually signed with Hello Artists, and she can’t overstate how helpful she’s found it having an agency on her side.

“People have a very distorted view of what is right to ask for because of social media and digital. I have been given contracts that you don’t even know how to break it down or read it, and they’re designed to trick you.”

Kyle’s agency handles all contract negotiations, advocating for her financially so she can focus on the work. She loves not having to “be the one talking to the client about money”.

“It’s so worth the cost to have someone on your side.” 

Her advice to photographers seeking representation is to ensure “your portfolio is strong and speaks to you and what you want to be doing.”

Finding Work

Kyle says approximately half her work comes through her agency, and the rest comes through referrals and recommendations from her network. However, she makes it clear that freelancing is not about waiting for the work to come to you.

“If there’s a really cool project that you really want to do, that could fit for a magazine or a company, you don’t have to wait for someone to come to you,” Kyle says. She recommends reaching out with a pitch on what you can offer them, rather than asking the client how they can help you.

Additionally, Kyle says it’s important to be constantly building your portfolio, and doing test shoots that show off the type of work you want to be doing.

“I think people underestimate how much you can manifest the clients you want by showing the work that you want to do,” Kyle says. “I talk to a lot of people who feel like they get pigeonholed into specific styles or genres of work that they’re not really stoked about.”

Kyle says the trap these photographers fall into is including work in their portfolio that they were paid to do, but that doesn’t adequately represent their artistry. Kyle deliberately shares only specific projects on her website and Instagram.

“Showing work I’m excited about helps me get more jobs closer to my personal style and interests.” 

Creative Process

A glance at Kyle’s Instagram reveals she has a unique visual style. The work she shares on the platform is so enchanting, we included her in our recent post about 10 women photographers on Instagram you should be following.

While it’s clear a lot of work goes into crafting every image, maintaining a consistent look is not something Kyle worries about on set.

“I don’t ever go into a shoot and say, ‘here’s what I’m going to do to make sure it looks like me,’” Kyle says, although she admits it’s the “biggest compliment” when someone recognizes her work before they see who’s credited.

“The hard part isn’t in maintaining your own style, it’s more adapting to what someone wants from you, and being able to do that while still being excited about it.”

Kyle explains that most brands have an established style, and aren’t looking to completely reinvent how it looks and feels. When being considered by a new client, she often has to prepare a treatment that explains how she’ll create something that feels new while still honoring the brand legacy.

“You have to figure out a way to achieve the look that they need and also make it unique enough that you’re making it exciting for them and it does feel fresh and new.”

Kyle admires photographers like Stephen Shore and Gregory Crewdson who “break the norm” in their work. Trying to do things differently is a challenge she’s embraced as a commercial photographer.

“Every client on set is saying to you, ‘does it make sense? Would we put a fork here? Would a person be eating from that direction?’” Kyle says. “I’m constantly pushing myself to be like, ‘it doesn’t have to make sense.’”

Production

For most commercial stills work, Kyle uses a medium format Phase One Digital Backy camera. Medium format cameras offer a high megapixel count, which is critical for large applications such as billboard and print work. A high resolution means Kyle can also crop-in her photos without losing too much detail.

Kyle has been creating a lot of stop motion animation work recently, which requires a different type of camera. Medium format cameras capture ultra high resolution images, but the file size of every photo is massive. This means they aren’t an ideal choice for stop motion, which requires a camera that can capture multiple frames per second.

“For stop motion animation, I’m using Canon cameras, whether it’s the 5Ds or the 1DX Mark II,” Kyle says. “They can just process files faster.”

Kyle attributes the growing interest in stop motion animation to the meteoric rise of Instagram as a marketing platform.

“Instagram has really replaced a lot of where marketing happens,” Kyle says. “I know there are brands that spend 100% of their marketing on Instagram.”

While brands can advertise on Instagram using stills or video, Kyle thinks stop motion animation offers the best of both worlds. They’re more intriguing and dynamic than a still image, yet less complicated to produce than a full video. Of course, that’s not to say they’re easy to make.

“It’s a lot harder than doing stills because you have to be prepared to do a lot of takes,” Kyle says. But it “is different than video in the sense that it’s more jumpy.”

“You have to really find the balance of a human interaction in stop-motion.” Kyle recommends focusing on simple action, such as a hand entering the frame, to avoid a complicated production. 

Moving Forward

While “everything I do is adjacent to food at the moment,” Kyle is always looking for ways to grow as an artist. She’s recently started taking on more video and directing work, and unlike most professional photographers of her calibre, does her own retouching.

Kyle is unopposed to taking on other styles, such as fashion photography, but she really enjoys the creative potential offered by food and product photography.

“Going somewhere and shooting someone is different than building a scene and a world and lighting it to look the way you want it to,” Kyle says. “I like to be able to build things from scratch on set and really bring a vision to life.”

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We hope you enjoyed our interview with professional food photographer Chelsea Kyle. Chelsea is represented by Hello Artists and her Instagram handle is @chelsealouisekyle. Her website is chelseakyle.com.

March is Women’s History Month, and this Monday, March 8, is International Women’s Day. So we thought now would be a great time to profile some of our favorite women photographers on Instagram. 

There are millions of women photographers on social media worth celebrating. In fact, many of Instagram’s top accounts are women photographers who have garnered millions of followers and received the coveted blue verification check next to their name.

For this post, we’d like to highlight photographers who haven’t yet received widespread attention. The accounts listed below aren’t verified and have less than 50K followers. However, their work speaks for itself. The women we’ve featured are extremely talented artists, each with an incredible body of work that’s freely accessible. They’re also spread across the world, from Hong Kong to New Zealand.

Here are 10 women photographers on Instagram you should be following.

Alejandra Hauser

 

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Alejandra Hauser (@lahauser) is a Mexican photographer currently based in Paris. Hauser primarily specializes in fashion photography. However, some of the best photos in her grid are stunning landscapes she’s captured while travelling, from the Italian countryside to the streets of Japan.

Hauser first became interested in photography at age twelve when she attended an exhibition showcasing photographers including Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Walker Evans. Their influence can be seen in her work today. Like Bravo and Evans, Hauser’s photographs are wonderfully cinematic. She has that rare ability to create utterly captivating visuals of otherwise ordinary subjects or sights. Every photo she posts tells a story.

Hauser likes to shoot digitally and on film, using a Canon 5D Mark IV and a Canon EOS Rebel G. She’s worked with clients including Levi’s, Lacoste, and Nars, and publications such as Vogue and Elle Mexico. Follow her on Instagram for mesmerizing snapshots into everyday life around the world.

Chelsea Kyle

 

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New York City based photographer and director Chelsea Kyle (@chelsealouisekyle) has redefined the thirst trap. Specializing in food and still life photography, she has developed an engrossing visual style that will make you salivate. Her stylish photographs of cocktails, cake, mac and cheese, and other treats are a feast for the eyes.

Kyle got started while interning for Boston Magazine, where she was charged with snapping photos to go with restaurant reviews. Given her first taste of food photography, Kyle’s career progressed quickly from there. Today her clients include Grey Goose, Johnnie Walker, and Kraft, and her work’s been featured in publications including Bon Appetit, Vanity Fair, and Women’s Health.

Kyle’s attention to detail is remarkable. Her sparkling, flawlessly lit compositions are comforting scenes of retro grandeur. Every photograph looks as if it were shot on the set of Mad Men.  They instantly transport you to a time of wicker chairs, bar carts, and elegant glassware, and you’re very happy to be there. To quote Don Draper, “nostalgia – it’s delicate, but potent.”

We recently interviewed Kyle about the challenges of working as a freelance photographer, check it out to learn more about this talented artist.

Tyra Mitchell

 

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Tyra Mitchell (@tyrathezombie) is a Washington D.C. photographer and visual artist. Mitchell shoots on a Mamiya RB67 and her grid is filled with intimate film portraits that define her style. A natural fit for fashion photography, she’s worked with brands including Opening Ceremony, Warby Parker, OXOSI, and Urban Outfitters.

Mitchell is also the founder of the Art Mom Project, an online community and platform for creative mothers. The project seeks to provide a safe space for mothers to share their artwork and personal stories related to motherhood. As the mother of twin toddlers, Mitchell knows the challenges firsthand of pursuing a creative career while being a mother. 

“As I have grown to learn, being a mom is not easy. Not to mention being a mother who also has creative pursuits,” Mitchell told Forbes in an interview about the Art Mom Project. “I had many unanswered questions that sparked my yearning for needing an outlet, platform, and community for other women like me.”

While Mitchell has dedicated herself to growing the Art Mom Project, she still makes time for photography projects, both professional and personal. Follow her on Instagram, because Mitchell is a photographer you’ll want to keep your eye on.

Iris To

 

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Iris To (@iristography) is a Hong Kong architecture and street photographer. Her vibrant snapshots of urban life are captivating, showcasing Hong Kong (and other cities she travels to) as you’ve never seen them before.

To’s vivid, cinematic photos look like they were captured on film. However, she actually uses a Fujifilm X100V – a mirrorless camera. Fujifilm pride themselves on the film simulation capabilities of their cameras, so it’s thrilling to see what’s possible when the camera is in the capable hands of a photographer like To.

To’s Instagram bio reads, “capture moments that cannot be recreated”, and you could consider that her artist statement. Every one of her photos feels authentic and spontaneous. Her subjects – street vendors, tourists, passersby – aren’t posing, they’re just living their lives. And through To, we’re given a raw glimpse into them.  The result is images that are intriguing, touching, funny, heartbreaking, and incredibly beautiful.

Ash Adams

 

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Ash Adams (@ashadamsphoto) is a photojournalist and documentary photographer based in Anchorage, Alaska. She is a National Geographic Society grantee and has had her work featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

The photos Adams shares on Instagram range from breathtaking Alaskan landscapes to compelling portraits of politicians and fishermen. She likes to shoot on medium format film, using a Hasselblad 500CM and a Mamiya RZ67. However, she also keeps a Sony a7R IV handy for digital work.

A good photojournalist captures pictures that are worth more than a thousand words. Adams’ work is a great example. Her images provide an incredible, honest insight into Alaska; its politics, its residents, its natural scenery. Her Instagram is a window into the nuances of everyday life in America’s largest and most sparsely populated state.

Kristin-Lee Moolman

 

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The work of South African photographer Kristin-Lee Moolman (@kristinleemoolman) immediately catches your eye. Her enchanting portraits are characterized by vibrantly dressed subjects contrast against a cool, washed out landscape. Her unique visual language has been wholly embraced by the fashion world. Moolman has worked with brands including Burberry and Nike and publications such as British Vogue, Dior, and Dazed.

Moolman grew up in South Africa towards the end of Apartheid, and she acknowledges it had an influence on her work. While Moolman doesn’t intend to be political, South Africa’s shifting political landscape continues to be reflected in her work. In 2016, she collaborated with London-based stylist Ib Kamara on a project that challenged traditional stereotypes of masculinity, gender, race, and sexuality. Entitled 2026, the project envisioned what men’s fashion would look like in 10 years time. 

Through her work, Moolman continues to imagine what the future of Africa will look like. Her vision is utopian, colorful, inclusive, and enthralling. Follow her on Instagram to see it for yourself.

Petra Leary

 

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If you’re looking for someone who will elevate your Instagram feed, look no further than New Zealander Petra Leary (@petraleary). The award-winning photographer’s aerial shots of coastlines, basketball courts, and other landscapes are truly breathtaking.

Leary has a background in graphic design and it reflects in her work.  Every photo feels carefully composed, accentuating the symmetry in both natural and manmade landscapes. She’s particularly fond of photographing sport courts. Photographing them from a birds-eye angle, Leary highlights each court’s bright colors and geometric design. The result is vivid, arresting, and aesthetically pleasing imagery.

Leary shoots with the DJI Mavic 2 Pro and DJI Phantom 4 Pro drones. She also uses a DJI Smart Controller. In an interview with Women Who Drone, Leary mentions tripod mode and burst mode as her favorite DJI features. Tripod mode enables more precise control over the drone’s movement, a feature Leary appreciates when she’s trying to get her shot “perfectly straight and aligned.” Meanwhile the 14fps burst mode on the Phantom 4 Pro (5fps on the Mavic 2 Pro) is ideal for when she’s photographing sports.

Read our interview with Leary in which she provides some fantastic drone photography tips, and follow her on Instagram for a new, refreshing, and visually stunning view of the world. 

Chloe Horseman

 

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At just 23 years old, Chloe Horseman (@chloehorseman) has already made a name for herself as a renowned NYC fashion photographer. She’s worked with brands including Simon Miller, The Real Real, and Abercrombie, and publications such as Teen Vogue, Allure, and Refinery29.

Horseman’s visual language feels very intimate. Her warm photos, mostly portraits, look and feel very natural, like a tender moment caught on film. Horseman’s playful use of focus contributes authenticity. Speaking to I-D, Horseman says the tenderness that defines her work is accidental.

“I think it’s the way I interact with models that makes my images gentle,” Horseman explains. “Photography is a very intimate form of art. Being behind the camera is just as hard as being in front of it.”

Noura Al Neyadi

 

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Emirati photographer Noura Al Neyadi (@nooora91) creates masterfully composed images of the  sweeping landscapes and unique architecture of the UAE. She often places a solitary subject in frame to highlight the vastness of the scene she’s capturing. The vibrant colors and epic proportions of each photo ensures she’ll grab your attention with every post.

Noura is also skilled at portraiture and street photography. In 2020, she photographed doctors, nurses, cleaners, and other workers on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic using her iPhone 11 Pro. While conceiving the project, Noura noticed that frontline workers had learned to express emotion using only their eyes, as they were all wearing face masks. This inspired her to capture close-up portraits of her subjects, focused on their eyes. She then shared each photo on Instagram, with a one-sentence quote from the subject. The project was called Eye Stories.

“I wanted to celebrate them through my photography,” Noura explained to Sekka Magazine. “Their beautiful, determined eyes and their stories are what fueled my energy and gave me the courage to create this project.”

Following Noura on Instagram provides a riveting insight into the people, places, and culture of the UAE. 

Louise Whitehouse

 

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Louise Whitehouse (@louisewths) is a Swedish-British photographer based in Stockholm. Whether she’s capturing a scenic vista or candid outdoor portraits, nature plays an important role in Whitehouse’s work. 

Her gorgeous photography has been embraced by outdoor fashion brands like Fjällräven. In an interview on their website, Whitehouse discusses how living in Sweden has influenced her style. “Growing up in a generally pretty dark and cold country, I’ve learned to find beauty in raw, moody and sometimes very melancholic environments.” 

In the interview, she mentions her favorite camera is currently the Sony a7R III. However, her style is remarkably consistent regardless of what she’s shooting on. Her Instagram grid features images captured on a Nikon Z7t, Olympus mju-II film camera, and even her smartphone.

Whitehouse’s ethereal imagery feels both familiar and otherworldly. Comforting yet exotic. Following her on Instagram is escapism at its finest. 

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That concludes our list of 10 women photographers on Instagram you should be following. Let us know in the comments below which other women photographers we should be following on social media.