Donna Crous: Do What you Love

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This episode of the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast features food photographer Donna Crous. Based in Jersey in the Channel Islands, Donna runs her home studio, where she works with brands, agencies, and publications to develop recipes and create imagery for food campaigns, websites, and print media.

Donna began her career in a very different field, having worked in banking for many years. After starting a family, she left banking to focus on being a mother but continued exploring small business ventures like a gift hamper company. When her daughters grew older, Donna wanted to return to work but found her skills had lapsed. Drawing inspiration from her cooking and an interest in healthy eating, she launched a health blog. Donna soon realized high-quality photography was needed to make her recipes stand out. This sparked a passion for food photography that would become her new career path.

Through relentless practice and entering competitions like the prestigious Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year Awards, Donna's skills improved. Her images gained recognition, leading to opportunities like speaking at major industry events like The Photography Show. Her work was also seen by Nikon, who invited her to speak at their stage and run food photography workshops through them. Donna became a Nikon ambassador, the first in food photography.

As her career took off, Donna worked on multiple cookbooks, shooting for other authors and developing her own book of healthy recipes. Publishing 'A Healthier Family for Life' was a dream fulfilled for Donna. With a growing profile, successful book, and ambassador roles, everything seemed to fall into place for Donna's booming career in food photography, however, a cancer diagnosis meant she had to reconsider everything.

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Book

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