Episode 109: Sharing Beautiful Things, Even in Dark Times with Food Photographer Kimberly Espinel
Podcast
Episode 109: Sharing Beautiful Things, Even in Dark Times with Food Photographer Kimberly Espinel
“Creativity is my sanctuary, it’s where I go to escape from all the darkness in the world.” — Kimberly Espinel
This week’s episode is a reminder that your creativity is not only a gift, but a way to tell your story. I’m joined by Kimberly Espinel, award-winning food photographer, food and prop stylist, author, and creator of The Little Plantation.
Through her camera lens, creativity becomes a sanctuary. It’s a way to cope when things get tough and a way to tell the powerful (and sometimes political) stories that make us, us.
Kimberly and I reminisce about the early days of sharing food photography online and celebrate how sharing what brings you joy can nourish both you and the people who experience your work.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create.
What’s in This Episode:
Kimberly shares her definition of creativity as the ability to weave heart into every detail. From recipe development, to lighting, and styling, there are opportunities to express joy throughout every step of the creation process.
Kimberly opens up about embracing a plant-forward, seasonal, and political approach to food, and how she uses her images to express deeper values and beliefs while celebrating the underdog.
You’ll also hear how she self-published her first book, Creative Food Photography after being rejected by traditional publishers. She listened to her community’s needs and trusted her own intuition.
She also share about the creation of her second book, How to Make Food Famous and invites you to rethink how you share your unique gifts in a creative ways.
Topics Covered:
Defining creativity as the ability to craft unique food stories with heart
Embracing a plant-forward, seasonal, and locally-sourced approach to food
Drawing inspiration from dining out, walks in nature, and collaborating with others
How Kimberly zig-zagged her way into the publishing world when traditional publishers said no
Moving through blocks like self-doubt, perfectionism, and fear of being seen
Question:
What story is your creativity telling right now? Tag us on IG @chefcarlacontreras & @thelittleplantation and tell us!
xo Carla
PS: Are you Substack curious? Listen to this podcast episode about building your new digital home on Substack. Join the Substack Accelerator to share your creative projects and work in the world. Create, Launch, & Grow Your Substack
Listen to me on Kimberly’s podcast here
Disclaimer: Always seek the counsel of a qualified medical practitioner or other healthcare provider for an individual consultation before making any significant changes to your health, lifestyle, or to answer questions about specific medical conditions. This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only.
Note: Some of these are affiliate links, I receive a small percentage of the sales. I appreciate your support of my Latina & women owned business.
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About Kimberly Espinel
Kimberly Espinel is an award-winning London editorial and commercial food photographer, food photography teacher, food and prop stylist, Amazon best-selling author, creative business mentor and podcaster.
Kimberly captures images for food brands, cafes, restaurants, cookbooks and magazines and shares all she knows with her incredible students from around the world through her online courses, food photography workshops, and books.
With more than 6 years food photography experience, Kimberly helps her client’s food come to life with photography.
FIND + WORK WITH KIMBERLY:
Website: https://thelittleplantation.co.uk/
Instagram: @thelittleplantation
Online Courses: Food Photography & Food Styling Online Course
Food Photography Workshops: Workshops
Amazon Best-Selling Book: Creative Food Photography: How to capture exceptional images of food
Full Transcript:
Carla (00:01):
Welcome to Nourishing Creativity. The cycle of the last few years has left you and me feeling mentally, physically, emotionally, and creatively drained, nourish your very full life through interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs about how they create and move through their creative blocks. If you don't know me, I'm Chef Carla Contreras, a food stylist and content strategist. You can find me, chef Carla Contreras, across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. Kimberly, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I am so grateful to have you here. Can you share with us who you are and how you serve your community?
Kimberly (00:53):
Of course. So my name is Kimberly Espinal. I'm a food photographer. I'm also a food photography teacher. I teach food content creation essentially on social media. And like you, I'm a podcaster as well and a creative business coach. So lots of different hats, but also and done. I feel I'm a teacher first and
Carla (01:15):
Foremost. I usually ask what was your last meal? But I'm going to flip this on you and I'm going to ask you for you to share with us your favorite things to eat, capture, and share.
Kimberly (01:30):
Oh, that is so fun. So to eat, I have a sweet tooth. Anything dessert like a chocolate brownie that is just heaven for me. But I also won't say no to pizza for sure, to capture. I love capturing the underdog. I love capturing the things that nobody likes to capture. So broths or stews or curries, brown food, the things that people are always like, oh, it's so tough. I love making them look extra cute, and kind of proving everybody wrong with the underdog in food. And then to share, I think for me and everything I do is essentially about believing in the strength of your creativity. And that could be through recipe development, it can be through videography, it can be through videography, whatever it is to trust in the gift that you have and to be bold and brave enough to put it out in the world. So that's always my message. That's always my focus is what can I do to empower others to share their creativity boldly? And that's kind of my most favorite thing to share tips around that.
Carla (02:50):
This is a big question, and I am so curious of your answer. How do you define creativity?
Kimberly (02:58):
Oh, that is a question. I could take this many ways, but I'm going to think about this in the space that I occupy and that I understand best because not a singer or anything like that. But when I think about creativity, I think first and foremost about food stories. I think about how can you use that spark in your heart to convey your unique food story, your unique relation to the food of your heritage or the food you find nourishing or the food that you found empowering or whatever it is, and make it so that your heart is woven into that story and you can communicate it so that it's appealing and inviting and intriguing for others. Could that be through how you style your food? Could that be the creative aspect of actually the recipe development? Could it be how you play with light and colors? So there's lots of different facets, but I think for me it's about that food story and crafting that food story, telling that food story in the most creative way possible. So it's a roundabout way of answering your question.
Carla (04:12):
Yeah. I want to move into your current relationship with creativity.
Kimberly (04:20):
To be honest, we're recording this at a really interesting moment in time. I would say we've got COVID that feels kind of far away, but actually it's not that long ago. And we've got multiple wars in the world and climate crisis and all these things. And I find for me, creativity is my sanctuary. It's where I go to escape from all the darkness in the world. When I am photographing food, when I'm styling a plate, when I'm creating a recipe in the kitchen, it's this happy place. It's an escape. And to be honest, I'm not sure how I would cope without creativity to fall back on and to occupy my mind. And it makes me feel like I have some sort of agency in my life and in the world. So I find it super healing, especially now.
Carla (05:24):
What do you think about people that criticize others for sharing content that brings them joy? Like you're talking about?
Kimberly (05:34):
I've thought a lot about this, especially during COVID, during the pandemic, because there were a lot of people who couldn't buy anything in the grocery stores. It was mayhem, as everybody knows. But I think we all have a special gift. We all have a different role to play in the world. And if your gift is creativity or let's say it's humor, maybe you make people laugh. Maybe it's you're super good actor and you're there to entertain people or you're a good singer or whatever. If your gift is creativity in the form of food, then that is your gift and that is your contribution to making the world's a better place. You're doing a service by sharing it. That's how I've always seen it, and that's how I've always embraced it, because if my gift were to be that I'm an amazing nurse and I can care for people in the hospital, then that was the gift that was given to me. I just don't have that gift. You know what I mean? God had other plans for me, so to say, and so I'm going to embrace that and take the lead in that. That's how I've always felt. Okay. About sharing beautiful things, even in dark times.
Carla (06:42):
And you weave in political content, climate content and content that's close to your heart through the lens of food. Can you talk about that?
Kimberly (06:55):
Yes. So for one, I am predominantly, and I would actually say when I went plant-based, gosh, a decade ago or something, the term plant forward didn't exist yet. But now that it does, I actually want to claim it. I think it's a more accurate description of how I eat. But what initially brought me to embrace a plan forward lifestyle was really the environment was thinking about what are we actually doing to the planet? What can we do to be more mindful about how we're using the limited resources on this earth? So that already, I think was a way of by being plant forward. That was already a somewhat political statement as it were. And then the second part to that is that I tend to eat more seasonally and locally. That's not to say that you won't find an avocado, my sandwich or whatever. I do have that and an acai bowl when the mood strikes me.
(07:56)
But generally, I try to eat with the seasons. I try to eat locally. And so that's the undercurrent in a lot of the things that I do. Generally what I was saying before, when you asked about creativity, I want each and every one of my pictures, each and every one of my reels to tell my food story. And my life is political. The world for me through my lens is political. So that does definitely shine through in the musical choices and how I craft my voiceovers. And of course, the type of food I share. I always try to make it so that anybody, even if you're not particularly political, for whatever reason, that it's still accessible and joyful. That's kind of my approach to my work.
Carla (08:42):
Kimberly, how do you create the unexpected, and I want to preface this with, you have two books that are not cookbooks.
Kimberly (08:53):
Yeah. So it's interesting, was asked about this the other day because when I stepped onto the food scene, at the time, the only option that you had for a book deal was a recipe book. Any blogger who was anyone was getting a cookbook deal. And so initially I thought that was going to be my path, and that's what I worked towards. I shared recipes and then A, it's not my forte, it's not my gift. And B, what people were asking me more than recipes per se, was to teach them how to photograph food, how to light food, how to style food. And I was like, okay, this is maybe my thing. If one person asks you, you're like, oh, cute. If 10 people ask you, you're like, wait a minute. What's going on here? And so I leaned into that, built my business just going by what people wanted from me.
(09:45)
And then I just had literally, I woke up one morning, I was like, I want to write a book about how to photograph food, how to style food. I shopped that book around and no publisher wanted it. They're like, nobody wants to know how to photograph food. That's a ridiculous thing. And so I was like, well, I don't think you're right. I know that people are desperate for this information. So I self-published that book and it did really well. And this is super interesting because off the back of that book, a publisher saw my first book and they got in touch with me and they were like, listen, we have this idea for this new book, which is essentially about how to share your food content through short form video online and how to stand out and get noticed, et cetera. And we were wondering if you'd be interested in writing that book.
(10:37)
And instantly I was like, it had me at hello. It made complete sense. So I would say the first book was a response to what people were asking of me. And the second one was the idea of the book found me rather than me finding it, if that makes sense. So I feel that both books actually together give a 360 degree experience and learning experience of how to share both photography and videography content of your food online in the most impactful way. So that's kind of how I zagged myself into the publishing world. Slightly different, but there you go.
Carla (11:20):
I want to ask about how you nourish your creativity. And in parentheses, I want to say, what's your creative process? So my creative process
Kimberly (11:29):
Really is I love going out for meal and being inspired by that. I love going out for walks, being inspired by textures and colors around me, waving that in. I love also just browsing through Instagram, social media, Pinterest, those kinds of things. And just the visual stimulation of that and the thoughts and ideas that triggers for me. And then also sometimes it's just what's in my heart. And then I find a way to create that and share that so that I have that emotion as a starting point. For example, if I'm feeling super happy, then I don't need comfort food. I need a hip salad to go with that kind of light vibe. So it comes to me differently. But my most favorite way is collaborating with others. So that could be working as part of a team or an in-person workshop and just bouncing ideas off of the participants and my co-teacher. That's really me, my element, just sort of a group person. I definitely, I love collaborating and I find that inspiring to see what other people come up with and then adding my secret sauce to that, and then we combine it. But I think that's the beauty of creativity. It's endless options, endless ideas, endless opportunities.
Carla (12:49):
I'm curious about the in-person podcast, the live podcast, to launch your most recent book. What was the creative process for that to unfold?
Kimberly (13:03):
I was very scared to do that because I've been recording my podcast five years now, and it's always been me in my studio by myself and then somebody on Zoom, the other end of the world or something like that. And when you've done something and then it's time for change or a time to try something new, to try something different. And the launch of my book felt like perfect excuse to try something different. So we decided to do a book, launch party and record a live in-person podcast episode with a live audience there and two guests live there as well. And for me, it was actually, it was the team, because I wasn't sure. It felt very scary, but the team was like, let's do it. So we did. But the idea of who to invite, that was very simple because with my new book, how to Make Your Food Famous, my aim is really to show that there's not one path to success.
(14:01)
There's not one formula to success that we can all find success online, sharing our food in a multitude of ways. And so what I did is I took two creators featured in my book who are at the opposite spectrum of the creative process. So one of them, he uses his DSLR, I think he's got three DSLRs that he uses to create his food reels. And then the other side is somebody who just uses her iPhone for all her content and just does it on the fly, whereas he plans out his reels down to a tee. And I just wanted to show both of them have found tremendous success despite the fact that they have completely different approaches to creativity. And that was important to me that it wasn't just somebody who is super professional and everybody in the audience would be like, I can't relate to that.
(14:52)
Or somebody who uses their phone and there's somebody in the audience who's like, I'd like to go further. And you know what I mean? I wanted everybody represented, so to say. It was, I think maybe the best podcast episode I ever recorded because the audience was live, they were there to for q and a. And there's just, again, magic when you're around other people and ideas and thoughts and questions and curiosity. And so that's kind of how that came about. Maybe we can include a link to the episode in the show notes for people to tune into if they're curious to tune in.
Carla (15:22):
It was an incredible chat, so I definitely put the link in the show notes. Oh, thank you. How do you move through creative blocks, but also how do you guide as a mentor, as a teacher, your students, in order to move through creative blocks in order to create and share their stories?
Kimberly (15:45):
Here's something interesting is that I have noticed, generally speaking, everybody's different. But as a general theme with my clients, what I've noticed is it's often not so much day-to-day life that stops them from creating content from showing up online. It is other things, more permanent, consistent things that hold them back. So for example, self-doubt, perfectionism comparison, those tend to be the bigger themes that stop people from creating and sharing their work, especially people who are very sensitive, who are incredibly empathetic, who are much more deeply affected by what goes on around them. Although many do report to me that they find it super helpful to retreat to their creativity in the way that I described it before. So there is that, but I would say they tend to be the minority actually, in the clients that I work with, the majority have blocks that they've had for most of their lives around self-criticism, perfectionism, those kind of things. Those tend to be bigger stumbling blocks that stop people, A, from sharing their work online, and B, from taking it to a point where they're finding success. So in my mentorship program for example, we tend to work more on those kind of mindset things rather than the more emotional, which for sure is there, but tend not to be as pronounced with my clients anyways.
Carla (17:26):
And you mentioned this in the live podcast, and I'd love to touch on this about the emotional connection to your community, especially on Instagram, even though you don't share intimate details about your life.
Kimberly (17:43):
Yeah. It's interesting because I think you and I stepped onto Instagram round about the same time, maybe about a decade ago, something like that.
Carla (17:53):
2012 I started,
Kimberly (17:55):
Oh, even before me then. So I started in 2014. Even then, I was like, what is this space? If you think about it, you post something online into this kind of void, and suddenly people heart like comment from all over the globe, and it's exciting, it's exhilarating. But another part of me also was like, who are these people? How do they find me? So for that reason, because I didn't at the time fully understand how it all worked, even now actually I don't fully understand how it all works. I made a conscious decision not to share my child or my husband or anything too personal online because I was like, I trust that 99.9% of the people out there are safe, but there's always something else. But then also I thought, I want to create a sort of boundary between work and life, and this is how I'm going to define that boundary.
(18:46)
And I've always stuck with that. But I think to bring the interview maybe full circle, so to say, is because I do write from the heart, I create from the heart, I share parts of my thoughts, my emotions without realizing it, a bond has been formed between me and my community, and this wasn't why I did it, but I think it's an important point to note. I think that has helped tremendously with me finding success online. And that is definitely something I would invite anybody who wants to use social media to promote their business, whatever it may be, to think about how much of themselves they're willing and able and prepared to share online. Because the more they do, the more human their content will become, the more relatable, the more authentic and the more successful they will be online. So I've always just been me. I've not tried to be somebody else or pretend to be somebody else or make my content too clinical or too practical. There's always been a hard component and that has resonated.
Carla (19:57):
Thank you so much for sharing. Kimberly, can you share with us how we can find you, how we can work with you, how we can support you?
Kimberly (20:05):
Great. Thank you so much. Well, the best place to learn a little bit more is in my new book, how to Make Your Food Famous, which you can get on Amazon and all the places. And if you'd like to tune into my podcast, it's called Eat Capture Share. You can find it on Spotify, apple Podcasts, and all the other places where podcasts are found. And then come and say, hello, I'm the little plantation on Instagram. Just hop into my dm. I'd love to hear from you.
Carla (20:31):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me Chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. While you have your phone out, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. This is how others find this show. I really appreciate your support sending you and yours so much love.