042: Food, Photography, and Finding Oneself: A Conversation with Aran Goyoaga

Mica: [00:00:00] Welcome. To the 42nd episode of The Savory Shot. Y'all know who I be. I'm your host with the most, Mica McCook. I'm a food photographer coming at ya from the heart of Texas, A. K. A. Austin, A. K. A. Mi Casa 42 episodes, y'all. Dang! I can't believe it! What? We are dancing our way to that big 5 0? I cannot be more jazzed. Y'all, I feel like I need to do something to celebrate this milestone. Like maybe I'll go to Whataburger or something. I don't know. I'll pop some champagne, play a little Ying Yang Twins. I don't know.

I feel like I need to do this big because gosh, 50 episodes. Ah! But then I don't want to go too big because then what am I going to do when I hit [00:01:00] milestone 100? I don't know if I can do anything bigger than the Ying Yang Twins. I don't know. Let's, let's game plan. We've got a couple of episodes before we get there.

But y'all, how was your Valentine's Day? Were you booed up? Did you single and mingle? Or was it just another day for a G? There are two camps of Valentine people. You got those who like the chocolate, the flowers, the dinner, you know, the whole peacock dance.

And then you got those who are like, every day's a love day, and, Valentine's Day is not that special because I'm spoiled every day. Okay, I'm just gonna tell y'all up front. I'm in the first camp. If you're like, it's just another day for me. I'm loved every day.

Yeah, I'm gonna kick you in the shins because your girl loves Valentine's Day. I love the chocolate. I love the flowers. I want a gift. Take me out to dinner. Let me get all gussied [00:02:00] up and put my makeup on. I want to do all of that because, I don't know, I never had Valentines in high school. And so, I want my husband to spoil me.

And he does. He took me out for dinner, got me some earrings and some chocolate. But y'all, it's not Valentines Day that is my favorite day of the year. It's actually February 15th. Because of the discounts. I am all in favor of 50 percent off of all the chocolate at Walgreens. Your girl is stocked up until probably Easter.

And I don't know when Easter is. Is it in April or May? I don't know. But I got a lot of chocolate in my house. And I show no signs of running out. So whether you were booed up, single and mingled, or it's just another day, I hope you had a good Valentine's Day. I hope you felt loved and appreciated.

But first things first, y'all, [00:03:00] let's pour out some love for all of you, you beautiful souls tuning in. You could have been anywhere, but you're here with me. So whether you've been riding with me since the get go, episode one, or you just stumbled into our little corner of the podcast world today, doesn't matter.

You're here. Welcome, you are officially the peanut butter to my jelly, the bacon to my Macon, I've had a lot of coffee. I'm working on my second espresso of the day, so I am juiced up, ready to go. But I really just want to say thank you and give you a big virtual squishy hug.

Thank you for showing up and showing out. Today's guest is Aran Goyoga. Aran is a food photographer, a cookbook author.

She's a wizard with flower, a storyteller with the camera, and magician in the gluten free world. Her [00:04:00] book, now bear with me y'all, I've been practicing how to pronounce this

It's titled, Canelle Eats Vanille Bakes Simple and it is a manifesto on how delicious and inclusive gluten free baking can be. But y'all, today's episode, Ooh, one of my favorites. We chatted about everything from Aran's childhood in her grandparent's bakery in the Basque country of Spain, to her beginning days as a food blogger and eventual cookbook author to the gray area of Chat GPT.

And y'all, we had some opinions about that topic. But before we get into that, I got one little housekeeping detail, and that is I'm starting a Patreon. It is in its very early infancy, just putting it out there. I've had a couple of people ask me to start a Patreon, [00:05:00] they want tips and tricks behind the scenes and what I do on my shoots and how I edit photos

So I am going to be creating a Patreon. I have no launch date. Everything is really just in the beginning. So be on the lookout for that and, tell your friends, tell your mama, tell your uncle, tell anybody who is in to food photography. That's the announcement.

So let's start this y'all. Grab a comfy seat, a hot drink Maybe grab a snack. If you've got a gluten free treat, y'all, now's it's time to shine. So bust that baby out.

Maybe a cocktail. Maybe it was one of those kind of days. It's five o'clock somewhere. But whatever you do, settle in and let's start the show.

[00:06:00]

Mica: I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for being a guest on the show. We finally made this happen. Like I got sick, you got sick, then the new year happened. And now we are here, we're doing this. And I'm so excited that you're here. So thank you so much for being on the show.

Aran: Thank you for having me, Mica.

Mica: I want to ask about your journey from Spain to the U. S. When you came here, tell me who you were at that time and what that transition meant for you?

Aran: I officially moved to the U. S. in [00:07:00] 1998. I was 24 years old, but I actually had started traveling to the U. S. when I was a teenager. My parents were adamant that my brothers and I had to see other cultures and study English. So when I was 13, I did an exchange student program in Michigan for a summer.

Then when I was 14 and 15, I spent the summers in Oregon. When I was 16, I actually spent a whole year in a high school in Colorado. I developed a lot of friendships and this family that hosted me for the year in Colorado, they became like my American family. And their daughter would come and stay with us in Spain for three months at a time.

It was like a, really this back and forth since I was a teenager. I lived in Spain and I studied in Spain. I went to university in Spain. And then in my junior year of of university, I I met an American boy in one of my trips to visit my fam, my host family.[00:08:00]

And so then we started a long distance relationship. When I graduated from university, I came and moved to the U. S. permanently to be with him. And who I was back then, I was a very different person. In fact the last year that I was in Spain, I developed anorexia.

I was in the middle of an eating disorder when I moved here. It was really tumultuous super depressed, but in some ways it was the best thing I could do to recover because it really took me away from all the stressors that were, I think it was a really, a time in my life where I didn't really know what I wanted to do, and I finished what I was expected to do, which was study, I studied business and economics. A little bit against my will, not that I was really forced to, but I, I didn't really know what other options I had.

had the stress of school, the stress of having a boyfriend in another continent. Not knowing what I was going to do with my future. And so. left it all and moved here. I come from a really big family [00:09:00] and so really cutting all ties with them.

I didn't cut ties. We were still very close, but like not being living in the same country that was very difficult. Who I was, I was very lost. I was very sick. I kind of had to start clean slate, who am I, what do I want to do? I worked a couple of corporate jobs. In 2002 I enrolled in culinary school. I recovered from my eating disorder and I decided, to go to pastry school and really do something that I think I'm good at and that I'm passionate about.

Mica: I love that. What I find super touching about your story is, you describe taking on this, this major that it's it's not something I really want to do, but it's the, I guess the grownup thing to do. We're taught by our parents they want us to be secure. They want us to be stable. They want us to have a good life. Better than whatever life they had. They tell [00:10:00] you to pick these careers that maybe you're not passionate about but it's a stable career.

It's really difficult because you do that and you're like, okay, I'm stable. I have a stable job but I'm not happy and I'm just incredibly lost. So it feels like there are a lot of things that are just out of your control.

You grasp onto what you can control until you change your path.

I'm going to go after what makes me passionate and I'm super glad that you found that in culinary school.

Aran: It's also a privilege to be able to decide. Oh, This is what I want to do and, and I want to fulfill my dreams. I had a partner who was working. When I was going to school, he was supporting us both.

So that is a privilege. Not everybody can do that. Yeah. I mean, I worked, I worked while I was going to school, but when I think back at, 20 years ago, minimum wage in Florida was like, maybe not even 9 an hour, it was like 7 an [00:11:00] hour. That's what I was making. And so that is true privilege that I can take on a minimum wage job and go to school. We weren't wealthy by any means, but we could still survive and I was able to pull through and do what I thought I needed to do. So yeah.

Mica: When new photographers approach me and I tell them, look how I went about it because I did a complete career change as well, but one thing that I definitely had was a partner who could take on the brunt of the financial responsibility so that I could quit my job. Having my husband believe in me and support me is something not a lot of people have.

In an interview you did with Bomb, you mentioned feeling like an imposter.

Despite your professional background. That shocked the heck out of me because I'm like, she's done all of these amazing things. Like, are you kidding me? These cookbooks. Your photography is beautiful. Your writing. like, You've accomplished so much, how on earth [00:12:00] could you be feeling like an imposter?

So how did you overcome those feelings?

Aran: Okay. It's funny. Before I talk about the how. Which I do feel like I've overcome a lot of that actually, but I've also been doing this for 20 years. When we were talking about privilege, I was the whole time I was thinking about imposter syndrome and the fake it till you make it. Cause I feel like that's such an American motto of life is fake it till you make it.

I'm also a reactionary person. So I always take a bit of an a positional stance many times and so I always wanted to rebel against the fake it till you make it and just be honest that it takes. To learn a task, you have to be humble. You have to admit you don't know everything.

You have to take on projects for a little money or assist people. You have to practice. You can't just present yourself as a professional photographer, and know it all from the beginning. It takes a lot of time [00:13:00] to really hone your skills.

And so I feel like the privilege and the imposter syndrome, accepting those two and being humble come hand in hand for me. My work has two very different parts, which one is the culinary side and the recipe development side, and another is more the visual side.

I have confidence in my photography skills for my own expression, so my own expression of my books and my, the work that I put out there for myself. I still feel like I lack in a lot of knowledge when it comes to technicality, or if someone were to hire me to photograph a car or do like something that requires a lot more technical skill than I possess.

And so I'm humble about that. I probably need a lot of help and hire a team, but I love that I am able to express my visual taste and my visual language through doing it myself and the tools, the minimal [00:14:00] tools that I have. I'm super proud that I can offer that to other people if they wanted, but it has limitations.

So I, I feel really confident in my culinary school skills and how I develop recipes and use photography to express myself. But there is a limitation to my photography, if you will. And I hope that makes sense.

Mica: Yes, yes.

Aran: There's two things to being a photographer, which is one is the technical aspect, but I think the most important one is the expression. What are you trying to shoot? Maybe you are an amazing technical photographer and you can use that to express somebody else's vision. If you think of photography as expressing yourself, you kind of have to know what that is. Rather than having an expensive camera, I would tell people, I tell young people surround yourself with art books, with photography books, watch movies, develop what it is that your taste is. Once you have your taste and you know what you like [00:15:00] then the tools, it's good to have a limitation to the tools.

It's good to outgrow a camera because. The outgrowing teaches you exactly what you need and exactly what next camera you need, right? There's some cameras that work for everybody, but sometimes you need something specific about a camera and maybe you don't need all the bells and whistles. You'd rather have a camera where you're actually just using, like the old film cameras, where it was like manual and you set your settings. I love being able to outgrow. That's how I started, outgrowing cameras. I've always had a, a point of view. I didn't always know how to use a camera or lighting, but I knew what I liked and what I wanted to say. And I think that's really important.

Mica: You mentioned the importance of being able to express yourself verbally and through your work. One of my teachers said. Well, he said two things. The first thing he said is, you need to start talking about your photography more.

What was the intention? What were you thinking? What was the planning process [00:16:00] going into this? And then the second thing he recommended is that we watch art reviews or critiquers, where they're talking about a painting and they're analyzing the painting. He's like, really pay attention to how they're talking about the art.

Expressive like adjectives that they're using to describe the emotions and feelings. Pointing things out about this painting that supports, this critique. Pay attention to that and start talking about your work like an art critiquer would talk about a painting.

What are some ways that photographers can start getting to know themselves a little bit more so that they can express themselves visually through their work?

Aran: I think it really is about shooting. Having a camera with you at all times and shooting. Depending on are you a street photographer. And just carry your camera with you everywhere. If you're a food photographer like me, it's just really taking every second you can to shoot food, learn about styling food, lighting. What is it that you like? Look at [00:17:00] other photographers that you like and try to even copy a little. I do think in the learning stage there is

there's a lot of room for experimenting and try to maybe try to replicate what it is that you like, because that forces you to think like that photographer that you're trying to emulate. What is the direction of the light? How is the styling? Where's the shadow? How harsh is the shadow?

I'm thinking of food, like a plate. Now you're not going to go past this as your own sort of innate art, but all art forms or, doctors learn from other doctors. Painters start studying other painters. So it is an important part.

And I recommend that for everybody. But I think the most important thing is to practice because you need to actually do it. There's no other way. It's like going to the gym.

Mica: You're absolutely right in the beginning that you are going to be mimicking a lot of other photographers because you're beginning. [00:18:00] You don't know what you like what you don't like and as you, go further into your career and learn more about yourself.

That's how you find out.

Aran: And I think really paying attention to, like I said, go to photography shows. If you are more of a technical person, talk to digitechs. Really start getting more into the geeky stuff. If you are more interested in more artistic expression, go to photo shows, go to painting shows, surround yourself with art.

That's the only thing you can do. So yeah, I think it's just like putting in the time.

Mica: What did they say? It's a. You got to put in 10, 000, 10, 000 hours before you consider yourself an expert or something, something like that. And I'm like, I feel like this should be more like 20, 000 hours. You mentioned the difficulty of making a living from editorial projects like cookbooks and blogging. Given [00:19:00] your experience, what challenges have you encountered in striking a balance between your passion driven editorial projects and the more commercial focused work?

Aran: That's a great question. And in fact, I always want to know how people make money. I'm always fascinated by that. Cookbooks really, unless you are a really high selling cookbook author and we're talking like Martha Stewart, or, a few new ones that have come out that sell a lot of books, but in general, you would have to supplement your work with other sources of income because you get an advance that, it, it's spread out through maybe two, three years.

And then you get a royalty that's a very small percentage of the price of the book. You get royalty checks every six months. You have to make that money last and it's very small. Cookbooks are definitely passion projects.

I had someone recently tell [00:20:00] me that they wanted to publish a cookbook so they could add it to their portfolio. And I thought, Ooh, I don't know if that's a very good idea because, you really, it's so much work and there's other ways of building your portfolio rather than doing a cookbook.

But yeah, so cookbooks I feel like I'm now at a place where my books are selling better. Like my first book came out over in 2012. As time goes by, people get to know me more, so they're selling more. But I still have to supplement and I have commercial work and I usually work as a food stylist for bigger corporations. It's projects that maybe are not as satisfying artistically or it's a little bit more commercial,but they pay well.

So that's what affords me to have a newsletter that's free. I don't have a newsletter. I develop recipes that are new and it takes me a long time and I don't get paid for them. I also consider my newsletter as a gateway for people to get to know my recipes. And then if they like them, hopefully they'll buy my [00:21:00] books and they'll support future projects.

I probably could be a little bit smarter with charging for subscriptions and all these things. But right now it's easier for me for the newsletter to be free and then people hopefully will buy my book and then I have the commercial work that supplements everything else. So it is striking a balance. There, there might be an illusion that, people on Instagram have all this time and they give big videos of making bread or whatever, and then it's just all happens magically, but it takes a lot of time. Even just the food cost of creating a cookbook, like how much money you have to spend on groceries or things like that.

It adds up like you have big expenses. And that's me that I do everything myself. If I had to hire a photography team. That's why I say there's not a lot of money in cookbooks, This is my experience. I'm clearly, I'm only speaking for myself, but I love it. it is something that I like waiting.

I like having something printed that when people [00:22:00] look at it, they feel like they are entering a world that it's tangible. I could have a blog but I still feel like a collection of recipes in a book is more exciting to have to wait for it and all of that.

Mica: I'm trying to remember who said this, and I can't remember, but it was a couple episodes ago, the photographer said, two for the wallet, one for the heart. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds about right. How do you see the industry evolving in the next few years?

Aran: That's an interesting question. My commercial work is mostly food styling and so it's hard. I feel like there's less and less need for it. I do think that AI is going to take over in some aspects.

I already know, like one of my clients they do use some sort of form of AI for their photography. There's less work. One has to really hone on their voice or on their [00:23:00] style. Like you have to be distinguished for something. Otherwise, if you're just generic you might not be able to stand out or you could be easily replaced.

And I know that's really harsh and I feel like that can happen to me also. But I do think it's the reality we're facing. It's also very fragmented. There's different styles and, and I think it's social media or, or the access to different kind of trends. It's, it's almost makes like the trends, they're all current. All everything at once, like the movie, every, like everything at once can be because we have so many channels.

It's almost like I'm saying, I see this high contrast photography. I'm talking in food. It's very high contrast. Photography is still very relevant. But there's still that painterly aesthetic that's still very relevant. The minimalist. So I don't see a specific trend.

I do think that AI is gonna be a thing, and I actually have [00:24:00] seen some Instagram accounts who are doing interior photography using AI. It's very hard to know that that's actually not a photographer that, or that it's a photo that's enhanced slightly. Like it looks like it came out of a.

camera.

Mica: Of the camera. Every time there's something new, I'm like really excited about it. How can I use this in my work as a photographer? How can I use this as a tool? If there's a new app, I'm on it.

Yeah, and I guess that's the millennial in me. Getting on board with social media and wanting to be where the new things are. And so like with AI, part of me, it's like really excited. I'm like, how can I use this? And the realistic side of me is like, okay, I'm amazed by all the things I can do with it. That could potentially mean I'm, like, psyching myself out of a job. How can I use this as a tool, but not so much that it ends up replacing me?

And what are some things that I can [00:25:00] do? That AI can't do. One thing is, like relationships. People work with people they know. So I'm gonna foster my relationships as much as possible. It is really scary to think about. Especially in like Photoshop where it does the generative fill that one scares me I'm like, I don't even have to put anything in and it just makes it up. So who's who's making the art?

Is it Photoshop or me? That's where I feel like a lot of the gray lines could be, is whose art is it? AI or ours?

Aran: But I think eventually, you still need a vision. You still need someone to lead it. I'm hoping the machines are going to be so smart. It's a philosophical question, too.

Mica: Last year at South by Southwest, a lot of the panel discussions were very much about AI. It was split into two camps, the, the ethical side of using AI and the the legal side of it as a creative. So like one of the panels that we went to, they have like different softwares [00:26:00] where I guess what made ChatGPT so problematic is how it's sourced all of its information.

So there are like softwares where you can provide the images for the AI to like bank from. You can go and take your own like set of photos and put it into this software and then when you give it a prompt, it's using the images that you submitted to draw from. That is how some photographers have. gotten around the ethical and legal loophole of using AI, that I'm using this for my own work, my own photos.

So it is my work that I'm creating. But there's just so much gray that it makes me uncomfortable. I'm excited about the creation part of it. I'm uncomfortable with how photographers and creatives can protect themselves and their work.

Aran: Yeah, and that's what's happening with cookbooks, too. Generative AI has been using recipe cookbooks and blogs and [00:27:00] whatever content is online in terms of recipes to create recipes and train the machines. When this is your livelihood and we're talking about licensing, when you're using a photo from a photographer for commercial purposes, you have to pay a licensing fee.

So how does that apply to recipes, photos, like you're saying, to anything that affects somebody's future income? We're going to have to determine what the boundaries are and how to move forward. I know publishers are trying to incorporate clauses now and, and contracts about this. I'm sure photography is happening, the same thing.

Yeah, it's fascinating.

Mica: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely something that we need to think about collectively as an industry. How are we going to protect ourselves? I don't know the answer to it, but I am open to like conversations and discussions about it.

Aran: I also don't know what the answer is, and I don't know enough about the technicality of it to know, [00:28:00] where we're going. Sometimes I hear it's still very in its infancy. Sometimes I listen to people who have very apocalyptic visions. So I don't know.

Mica: I want to talk about your last cookbook that you came out with. Forgive me if I pronounce this wrong, Canel et Fennel Bakesimple. How close was I?

I think I butchered that. What inspired you to create this cookbook?

Aran: So in 2019, I published a book called Cannelle et Vanille. Cannelle et Vanille was, it's really not a very smart name that I chose for myself, but it comes back from my pastry day. Before blogging anything when I was a pastry chef. And I had an executive pastry chef who, chef who was French. And I love the way the I's sounded in French, like Vanille.

Cinnamon and vanilla were the smells of my childhood because my grandparents had a pastry shop and so I grew up in it. Walking in there [00:29:00] smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. This is 20 years ago, I thought, if I ever have a business, I didn't know what it was going to be, but I'm going to name it Cannelle et Vanille.

And so I had my blog that I started in 2008 that I named Cannelle et Vanille. And then my Instagram handle became that. In 2017, 2016, I started working on a book and I didn't want to call it that. I had other ideas, but then my publisher thought it was a good idea to name the book after what I was known for, which was the Instagram handle in the book or in the blog.

Sorry. And so my book, Cannelle et Vanille, which encompasses meals for throughout the day came out in 2019. It had a baking chapter and, and I had a lot of recipes that were left out of that chapter. So I thought, I have a book that's just about baking. it's almost like I took Cannelle et Vanille and created a second volume that is [00:30:00] just baking.

And that's Cannelle et Vanille Bake Simple that came out two years after the first one. That was the inspiration. It was really like, just came out of working through that first book. And just recipes that poured out of me.

Mica: I saw that in your bio that you grew up, in the pastry shop with your parents, and I was like, Oh my gosh. I've been to Spain once and I went to Madrid. What part of Spain are you from?

Aran: I'm from the Basque country, which is like a four hour drive north of Madrid.

Mica: My husband, he did a study abroad in Madrid. His lifelong dream was to go back and visit. So we visited Madrid, we went to Toledo we went to Malaga, El Escorial. But my favorite was the churro shop that we went to. And we went there like every day, the entire time that we were there, I was like, I don't know when I'm ever going to be back in Madrid. So I'm going to eat as much as I can. They had a little to go window, and there was a guy there, and he had his churro, and he had his [00:31:00] espresso. And it was early in the morning, and I was like, what a beautiful way to start the day, churro, and coffee. And I was like, I don't think I could ever have a problem just seeing that. And I'm sure he was on his way to work.

But it was just my favorite thing about being in Madrid. But being able to grow up in a pastry shop, what was that like?

Aran: It was all I knew. I didn't really know any different, but I do, in hindsight, when I see how other people have grown up, I do think it was pretty idyllic. My mom is the oldest of eight siblings.

So it was a big family.

And my grandparents lived abroad. There was a an apartment above the pastry shop. So they lived there. My family and I lived across the street. My mom worked front of the house. So after school and before school, I would go there and it was where I did my homework.

On the weekends, we ate lunch there all together. Lunches of 25 people were very common because it was, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, some of my [00:32:00] cousins were born, so it was a huge family. And it's very working class background, and I think that has given me a very grounded upbringing.

My grandmother treated everybody super well and was always welcoming people in the back. She was a very religious woman, so there was always like priests coming to visit her. But then my uncles and aunts were a little bit, the Basque country at the time was very political.

So they were a little bit more into politics. Radical people coming in and having these conversations and discussions with priests and it was just very colorful, I have to say, and I just really enjoyed it because I, I've always been a person who enjoys conversation and exchange of ideas.

I think I had that in there because it was a space where a lot of people gathered. In Spain, people don't really go to each other's homes as much because they're people live in smaller quarters. So a lot of the life happens on the street, like you saw in Madrid. Is it's a very pedestrian life [00:33:00] where you spend a lot of time outside.

And so having a place where that was our families that people gathered and it was just very interesting. People knew me, they might not know my name, but they knew I was from the bakery and that I was of that clan, let's say.

It was really my identity. My cousins now still work there. it was open in 1949. Still in the family business. Now they have two shops. It really was idyllic, I miss my grandparents so much. My grandmother was just really she always had, she had her apron on and would go outside on the street with her apron on.

When we were kids, she'd wash our hands in the big marble sink, made everybody blow their noses and then she'd feed us all.

Mica: Oh, I love that. You mentioned about Spain being like a very pedestrian country and that is the other thing that I like really remember a lot of is just how much everybody walked everywhere. Our friend Luis came to visit us in Austin.

He thought our neighborhood was just like [00:34:00] a, a model neighborhood because he's like, where's everybody at? Where are your neighbors? And I'm like, we all mind our business around here. And he's like, you don't know your neighbors? I was like, no, I don't even know what they look like.

And that was foreign to him.

Aran: I feel like Americans are on the exterior friendlier. Like in Spain, you would never really start a conversation with somebody in the grocery store line or anything like that. Here people just start talking, even if they don't know you, they just bring up something.

And that always surprised me because that would never happen in Spain. However, I do think it's a lot more communal experience living like that street life. And even small towns have a bit of an urban life because everybody is shopping at the small stores So I think Americans are friendly. It's just that in Spain you are around people a lot more.

Mica: Yeah.

Boston is not into small talk. Bostonians. I'm from Texas. This is the South. We like to talk. We [00:35:00] like to know how your day's going.

I tried that in Boston. They were just not having it. They're like, my business is mine and I want you out of it.

I got two more questions.

I'm enjoying this so much. But I also know that you got things to do. My second to last question is what has been the most surprising feedback you received from your readers about your book?

Aran: I don't know that it's unexpected because when I'm writing a book, I'm really hoping that the recipes translate into other people's homes. But I'm really proud that the recipes are being made and people have learned about gluten free baking, and that's kind of like, has always been my goal to, I don't know if it's the word empower, because that sounds so pretentious, but for people to not be intimidated by baking, and then gluten free baking specifically, and people who have been deprived, when you can't eat something, and you're constantly craving that.

To be able to make something that brings you back to that feeling. It's really powerful. That's been the [00:36:00] case with this book. I say that with being humble andreally grateful for the feedback. That's been the most rewarding for me.

Mica: My last question for you is, what advice would you give to someone who is starting in food photography?

Aran: I would say, like I said in the very beginning, is to really test. I just made things at home, and I shot them by a window. That's how I learned to use my camera, that's how I learned to modify light. If you don't know how to cook well, or if you don't trust your styling then have someone work with you, partner with people, maybe chefs that need images. That don't know how to operate a camera, but you do, and so working together and creating a portfolio, and then, work from there.

I feel like I'm not saying anything revolutionary, but it is the basis for building your skill Just really partner with other people if it's not something you can do on your own. [00:37:00] Look at photography that you enjoy. Understand why you enjoy it and try to replicate that.

Mica: This is such a great way to start the week off. I I enjoyed this conversation so much. Where can the listeners find you and follow you?

Aran: So the easiest way is on Instagram under Canel, Cannelle Vanille. And my website, if you want to subscribe to my newsletter, which again, it's free. It's Aran Goyoaga dot com and then my books, which are available even in public libraries. Go check it out. It's under my name, under Cannelle et Vanille.

Mica: Thank you so much for being on the show. I just, I loved everything about this conversation. So thank you for, for being on the show.

Aran: Thank you for having me.

[00:38:00]