Taste the rainbow: Food gradient photos showcase ingredients

Photographer Brittany Wright, 23, has become an Instagram star for her beautiful and creative photos of food gradients. She started the project, which you can follow at @wrightkitchen, to learn how to cook anything and everything.

She chooses her ingredients based on what's in season because that's when raw food looks its best, and took this picture in January "when citrus was at its peak."

Wright regularly visits farmers markets and food shops to gather her supplies, and says she plans her photos "in the moment" once she gets home with all of her ingredients and spreads them out. This shot is made of a series of spices.

"I've always been really drawn to color," Wright says. "When I was younger, I would lay everything out in a similar way, my crayons or whatever. With my Barbies, I would style them and dress them up with different color combinations, lay out their shoes and organize them by color. It's always kind of been who I am."

"Still always on the hunt for more blue foods," Wright wrote of this picture.

"I do a lot of raw ingredients," Wright says. "My main focus is what is produced from the Earth is really pretty — all the colors that just naturally come out are awesome."

Wright started her blog because she wanted to learn how to cook "as a life skill."

"People will tell me that I inspire them, that they want to eat healthier," Wright says of the response to her photos. "When people tell you that, why would you stop?"

Wright, who makes these food gradient photos during her nights and weekends, says she'd like to make it a full-time job: "That's what means the most to me."

"I'm still surprised about how many pears I was able to find for this pear gradient," she wrote of this pic.

"I get an early start every day," she says of her process. "A lot of times I wake up early and I'm ready to get going because I'm excited about whatever it is I'm going to do. I love what I do, so I'm really thankful."

Wright's photo caption for this one: "Which toast is the best toast?"

"Peeled pre-pickled pearl onion gradients," she wrote. "That's a lotta P's."

"There are some really crazy looking carrots out there," she said. "And carrots are pretty year-round too."

In addition to taking gorgeous food shots, Wright's goal is to encourage healthy eating. "I've realized more and more that people either don't care about what they're eating or they don't care to know," she said.

She'd love to educate "as many people as I can" about "where their food comes from, what it is, what it does, why it's good for you, how to eat it, and how to cook it."

Wright served up these colorful egg gradients in honor of Easter.

Wright has struggled with her photos being lifted and shared across the Internet without her permission. She shared this photo with her fans to thank everyone for letting her know when her images had been stolen and supporting her work.

"Thank you for being such an amazingly supportive and loyal group of people to have around," she write. "You fuel my art and keep it in my name. This heart of heirlooms is for you."

Wright not only loves photographing food, but talking about it with friends and strangers. "I love hearing people's ideas and talking to them about food and hearing their perspective," she wrote. "Everyone's opinion matters."

What happens to all these ingredients after she's done taking pictures? "I either eat it or juice it," she says, "or I give it to my friends."

She took this picture after getting a new juicer and making all kinds of creative combinations.

Wright started by photographing cooked meals, but now sticks primarily to raw ingredients. "Food is very temperamental," she said. "It can only be where it's at for so long."

After gathering her ingredients, Wright takes them home, lays them out on a big table in her living room, and chooses a material to put them on top of. In this case, these pears are set against a gray backdrop.

"I don't use any artificial lighting," she said. "I just use whatever's available."

Wright has learned through posting these photos that the more colors she includes in a gradient, the better the response is online. "If I go from red to purple, people are like, 'whoa,'" she said.

Wright has recently started selling prints of her work, available on her site.

"Everything that people have been purchasing from me just goes right back into it, and fuels me to keep doing more," she says. "People have been really sweet about that. It's a really humbling thing for me...It's just kind of changed my life completely."

You can follow her latest pictures on Instagram at @wrightkitchen.