Karen Hirshan’s photographs are simple, earthy, stylized portraits of food. Whether it’s a cooked meal or a raw vegetable, her images evoke a fresh, timeless quality. Karen's career began as a fine art photographer, exhibiting in galleries across the United States and Europe. Her subjects always leaned towards elements of nature.
Working with Cibachrome, black and white charcoal prints and a turn-of-the-century process know as orotones she was always seeking new directions to interpret her ideas. A series entitled “In the Garden” incorporated vegetables and fruit sourced from local farmers markets. Shortly after working on this series she took a break from photography to raise her two daughters.
After a few years journaling and pondering her next creative move, she found herself in the kitchen cooking, a path that she realized brought her closer to the mother she had just lost. It suddenly became clear that all her passions were colliding in the kitchen. Cooking, working with fresh food, wandering the local farmers markets for seasonal produce, creating beautiful plates and table settings and most of all, photographing and styling food, became her new purpose. The element of fresh flowers also became a complimentary aspect of her repertoire.
Karen believes that our first connection to food is visual. Her photography enhances that connection and satisfaction one feels when gazing upon a meal or produce. Deciding to expand beyond her kitchen and garden in Santa Monica, California, she started to look at restaurant life, photographing kitchens, tools and moments in the dining area before customers arrive. So began @kthkitchen. She used her IG to explore her passions for food. Gaining attention rapidly, her photography picked up where it left off many years ago.
Karen’s images have always been close and intimate, compelling the viewer to notice the simplest of details. Continuing her theme of nature, food has become her new muse.
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