ABOUT Boltneva

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I was a professional chef for over a decade before I traded my knife for a camera. When I’m not shooting food, I’m cooking new recipes at home, or traveling for it. I'm a sucker for chorizo tacos, and if brownie-a-la-mode is on a menu, I'm bound by a personal code to order it. Wherever I find myself, I’m distracted by light; hard light, soft light, dappled light, and turning over where to find it again or how to recreate it.

 

Over the course of my years in professional kitchens, I worked with a variety of people, from folks who remain like family, in a team-oriented, fast-paced environment with tight deadlines, to turn out a quality product again and again. It was a wild ride. No night was ever the same. I learned the importance of grace under pressure, communication, and teamwork.

 

Now I draw on the skills from my past career to photograph food and food stories, for boutique food companies and national brands, restaurants and resorts, chefs and purveyors, farmers and winemakers. I'm most interested in storytelling, whether it's profiling a person or experience for an editorial publication, or building a portfolio of image assets for a commercial client.

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I truly love what I do.