Based in fort worth, texas. Available for select travel.

About Heather Gill

I didn't pick up a camera and decide to photograph food. I was already a chef.

I've been working with food my entire professional life - as a classically trained chef, a recipe developer, a stylist, and a photographer. Those aren't separate careers. They're the same set of instincts, applied at different distances from the plate.
Most food photographers learn to make food look good.
I learned to make food first.
That difference shows up in the work. I know when a dish is ready - not because the light is right, but because the food is right. I know what a sauce should look like at the moment it's done, what steam means, what a crust should sound like. The camera comes out after that.

What this means for you.

I’ve never been interested in simply making food look beautiful. I’m interested in helping people understand it. Everything else-the recipes, the menus, the photography, the writing, the strategy-begins there.
When you hire me, you're not hiring a photographer who will show up and shoot what you tell her to. 
You're hiring someone who will tell you when the garnish isn't working, when the light needs five more minutes, when the recipe needs one more test before it goes in front of a camera. Someone who understands your product from the inside - because she's cooked it, styled it, and made it mean something before the shutter opened.
I work with food and wellness brands, editorial publications, restaurants, and hospitality groups. I'm based in Fort Worth, Texas, and available for travel.

The work, in brief.

Culinary
Classically trained chef
Menu development & visual systems, Nordstrom Restaurants - photographed finished dishes and developed step-by-step guides used across multiple locations.
Recipe developer & tester
Certified in Culinary Nutrition
Certified Health Coach
Creative
Food photographer & stylist
Graphic designer
Photo Editor, Edible Phoenix
Selected Recognition
Selected by Canon for CES Las Vegas; 5 Senses of Las Vegas prints chosen by Canon’s president for his personal collection
Featured by Zagat, Spago, Wynn Las Vegas, Vegas Magazine, WestJet, Southwest Media, and Scottsdale Magazine
90M+ views on Unsplash; Top 10% of contributors worldwide
Photography used by Figma, Notion, BuzzFeed, Trello, Squarespace, and publications across six continents

Few food photographers have built menus. Fewer chefs have designed brands. My work lives where culinary technique, visual storytelling, and creative strategy meet.

Let's talk about your project 

When there's no brief.

Maison & Menu is where I work without a client or a deadline. It's where the creative director in me gets to move freely - thinking about food, styling, visual storytelling, and what it means to photograph desire instead of dinner.

It's also, I think, the truest record of how I see.

On coming back.

There was a period where I stepped back from food work. I lost my sense of smell - which, for a chef and a food photographer, is not a small thing. It changes how you relate to the thing you've built your life around.
I didn't disappear. I kept working, kept learning, kept building. I earned certifications in culinary nutrition and health coaching. I understood food differently - not just as flavor and technique, but as fuel, as medicine, as story.
And then I came back.
In the middle of a pandemic, with my husband recovering from surgery, I developed and photographed 20 recipes for a commercial client. I delivered. Because that's what professionals do - they show up, even when showing up is hard.
That experience reminded me of something I'd started to forget:
I was never just a photographer. I was always a creative director who happened to have a camera in her hand.