We were lucky to catch up with Carter Hiyama recently and have shared our conversation below.

Carter, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

I do take vacations, oftentimes at the expense of feeling guilty since I’m not working. Being self employed, there is no PTO to take. If I work less, I make less and that can be a stressful thought that I’ve tried to get away from. On the other hand, it’s not healthy to be on 100% of the time. I make it a point to give myself time to step away and turn my brain off for a bit. That break helps me be more creative and engaged once I’m back to work.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My career started while I was in Santa Barbara but I’m actually from a tiny town in central California called Fowler (population ~7,000) which is where I first picked up the camera shooting skateboarding growing up. I moved to Santa Barbara for college where I graduated in 2015 and then started freelancing in 2018 doing solely video work. Around that same time, dining out and cooking started to become more of a passion and I started to dip my toes into shooting food and working with restaurants – and then the pandemic hit.

The world shut down and work grinded to a halt. All these restaurants I had just established relationships with were on the verge of closing and drastically changing their business models. They reached out asking if I was able to shoot photos for their online menus for takeout and delivery, something they’ve never really done before. I only shot photos for fun at the time, but I said yes anyway and shot for free without being able to guarantee that the photos would be any good. By my standards, the photos were not very good but fortunately they got better along with the COVID-19 situation.

As businesses gradually opened back up, I had connected pretty closely with a few restaurants and luckily for me, some of them ended up becoming wildly popular, with my photos attached.

These days I shoot about 90% photo and 10% video for businesses (big and small) and publications. I’m really fortunate to be called on by some of the most popular chefs in the United States to come out and shoot to document their food, restaurant, event, or whatever it may be that they need a photographer for.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The main thing I always come back to anytime I’m doing something creative is to do something different. I get bored easily and I’m always looking to shake things up to not get complacent. At the moment, I’m itching to travel internationally to go shoot and that’s been my goal for this year. With the camera, it can make travel opportunities possible and experience new things.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

With a visual medium like photography, obviously taking good photos helps your reputation but I’d say that’s the bare minimum that you need to be able to do. The most helpful thing I’ve found is to be easy to work with, down to earth and respectful. People want to work with people they trust and want to spend time around.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.carterhiyama.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carterhiyama/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-hiyama/

Image Credits
Carter Hiyama