When Gordon Ramsey gives you the thumbs up, you know that your Instagram has gone international!
Johannesburg, South Africa (13 October 2018) – Christy Strever, has been crowned the “Food Selfie Queen” of South Africa, and we are absolutely in love!
Strever’s story is both interesting and unique and something that South Africa should all be celebrating! Her photos are absolutely incredible… and that’s not just our opinion; Gordon Ramsey thinks so too.
Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa’s first “food selfie queen” moved to Port Elizabeth to finish her schooling but immediately moved back to the big city to take on her career as a trained chef!
“After boarding school, I lived in the States for a bit but moved back to South Africa where I studied horse management, worked at BMW, ran restaurants, then studied to be a chef.”
The food lover went to London for a few years to gain even more expertise in the food game but returned to South Africa, where she knew her heart belonged.
“I’m living back in my favourite city, the city of gold! Jozi my Jozi.”
In November 2017, Strever saw a picture online of a lady with a pineapple on her head and thought to herself… “hey that looks awesome, I want to do that!” She immediately raided her fridge and found an orange which became the inspiration (and start) to her food selfie journey.
But Strever is a qualified chef, and although she hasn’t worked in the kitchens since 2010, she is absolutely in love with food!
“Obviously one of my heroes in the kitchen is Gordon Ramsey and now he follows me on Insta!! With any luck he won’t unfollow me,” she explains with a grin on her face.
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“I also LOVE food, I think food is fascinating, especially food markets! Ah I love my food markets.”
The incredible photographer also taught herself everything she knows about make-up. She started the project by googling abstract make up, finding interesting pictures on Pinterest and then using the inspiration to create the ultimate food selfie shots.
“It’s never identical as it’s so hard to do and let’s not forget I never had face paint so I was using watercolours in my original works until I finally got the good stuff from Kryolan… which my skin and eyes are very relieved about! When I used the watercolour it would take ages of scrubbing my face to try get bits out.
Another annoying thing with the make-up is the eyelash glue… that stuff is a mission to get off and my eyelids always seems to be sticking themselves when I blink even 2 days after the shoot. Yes I use make up remover, although warm water works best at removing the glue.”
One of her favourite shoots to date is “Tomatoes”, a bold statement using the delicious fruit!
Strever recently shaved her head, and felt the new hairstyle made her look like a warrior… combining that with face-paint, red tomatoes and chicken wire, the photo looks like something from Black Panther.
“Although it was hazardous, I got plenty of cuts from the wire while trying to navigate tying the tomatoes onto it. Then the very next day I did lemons on chicken wire…with my cuts….lemons and cuts….just saying. painful.”
But the food selfie queen has also had many photo-shoots that she didn’t enjoy (while putting them together).
“Oreos” required the model to lay in a milk bath with oreo biscuits sliding in by accident and going all mushy under her back, she then spent hours pulling them out the bath so they didn’t get stuck in the drain.
She once did a photo-shoot with whipped cream too, but forget to wash her hair as she believed the cream had gone no where near it.
“I went to visit my sister and she hugged me then pulled back and said “you stink”.
I had scrubbed myself in the shower so I didn’t know what was going on until i found a clump of cream hidden in my hair that had gone sour.”
The incredible artist, model and photographer is certainly breaking the mold on Instagram, and we are excited to see how her food selfie career grows on the international stage from here.
To follow her adventures and see more incredible photos, click here.
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