Jenny Love: Bay Area Vegan Photographer

An amazing an generous human being, Jenny has an eye for beautiful color and composition.  I have been so blessed to work with her as she takes photos for the cookbook we are working on. She is able to work with my vision and create something that sparks thought and entices the soul.  She is comfortable working outside the box and is really exciting to collaborate with. - Jennifer

Inspiration

I've always been a very visual person. I was hyper-observant as a child; I liked watching people, gazing out the car window, flipping through all kinds of art books. I was pretty good at sitting quietly. I've recently realized that what I always thought was pure shyness was partly my preference to observe than participate. When it came time to declare a major in college, I chose photography because I thought I would actually enjoy studying it, and it was one of the best intuitive decisions I've ever made. With a camera in my hands, my role as an observer made more sense; I think I've always looked at the world through the lens of how to best capture it. I tried out a few different genres of photography before landing in food photography, which incorporates my passion for simple, beautiful food and the detail-oriented, composition-focused work that I really enjoy. At this point, I've finally struck up the courage to go out on my own, inspired by all of the entrepreneurs and small businesses in the sustainable and plant-based food community of the Bay Area.

Jenny's Photography Career

I'm currently working independently, still feeling like I'm at the beginning of my freelance career. I shoot most of my work in my big, light-filled living room and use props that I find at Good Will or garage sales. I'm seeking out projects with small, local, and sustainable businesses that need help with their brand identity and photography.

Mission and Goals

My main goal is to help showcase the amazing work that so many people are doing to make plant-based and ethical food more mainstream, affordable, and desirable. In today's age of Instagram and Pinterest, so many smart phone-users are constantly looking at photographs of food. Images are an incredibly powerful tool to impact and influence people's decisions on what to buy and where to eat, and I hope to leverage this power to bring more attention to sustainable, healthy food.

Anecdotes

My favorite project currently is the work I've been doing with Sanctuary Bistro! Jen & Barry generously brought me on to do the photography for their upcoming cookbook, and it's been a blast working with such a creative duo, blending our styles and drawing inspiration from their process. We've learned that our favorite images are created when we play and try set-ups that don't seem like they would work – plates in planter boxes and bowls in bushes. It's been a continuous lesson to not take my work too seriously, and that when I'm enjoying myself, the positivity will come through in the result. 

Community and Compassion

I love working locally and supporting people who are integrated into the SF Bay community. Anything that we create is a collaboration, and the most authentic endeavors are products of and for that community. I want to be able to support my neighbors' passion projects and help the people who are building a better world from right here in Berkeley.

I think the easiest way to cultivate a compassionate lifestyle is by paying attention to how we treat ourselves. Most of us are much more critical of ourselves than we would ever be towards someone else, so learning to treat ourselves with some grace and compassion can go a long way in feeling more content and at peace. When we understand that we are enough and stop fighting to constantly be better, this can help end our addiction to apologizing self-deprecation, and we begin to accept everything and everyone for how there are, right now.

Lifestyle Tips

Something that food photography has taught me is how much of a difference it makes to take care to feed your body and soul with real, beautiful food. It's not necessary to spend hours in the kitchen to prepare simple, well-intentioned, nourishing food. I like to plate my own meals as if for a photograph and take a moment to marvel at the food in front of me before I eat it, making it taste that much better and leave me that much more satisfied. I send gratitude to everything that contributed to allow me to enjoy a healthy meal – the energy from the sun, the water in the earth, the bees that pollinated the plants, farmers, truck drivers, grocery store workers, chefs. When we truly understand the importance of what we put into our bodies, we realize how connected we are to the world around us. 

Keep in Touch

jlovecreative.cominstagram @jlovephoto & @itsloveskitchen