Donna Crous
Camera: Nikon D750
Lens: 105mm f/2.8
Exposure: ⅛ sec,
f/5, ISO200
It’s been a month of birthdays for food photographer Donna Crous – special ones at that. “I’ve got my daughter’s 18th birthday tomorrow,” she says, “so between trying to work and trying to get birthday celebrations organized, I’ve had a busy few days.”
The previous week was her eldest daughter’s 21st birthday, and if that’s not enough for one month, Donna had her own birthday candles to blow out too, but politeness prevails and I refrain from asking how many were on the cake. After this interview, she will be making her daughter a lemon and poppy seed birthday cake. It’s a specific request because medical and health reasons mean Donna and her family stick to a wheat-free and grain-free diet. In addition to that, her youngest daughter is dairy-free, so choosing a birthday cake is not a straightforward affair. But, as Donna explains, it was these dietary restrictions that led her into the astoundingly deep world of food blogging and photography…
What are the dietary requirements that you and your family follow?
We follow a Paleo diet, it’s a high-fat, low-carb diet, so we are totally wheatfree. That’s how my whole business started. My youngest daughter is dairy-free as well and had to go on a diet for medical reasons. This was about nine years ago when we were in South Africa. We moved to the UK five years ago and I was being inundated with requests for recipes.
It was always the same recipe, and because I’d just moved here and I had the time, I thought, ‘let me start a blog so there’s one central place where everyone can go and get their recipe’. From there, the whole thing just mushroomed to what it is today.
How big is your audience now?
I get
