Brittany Wright’s photographs impose order on abundance. Citrus slices progress from ruby red to pale yellow. Peppers march from green through orange to crimson. Candies, spices, eggs, flowers, and vegetables are arranged by color, shape, size, and texture until the contents of a market appear to obey some hidden chromatic logic. “If you were to ask what my style was, I wouldn’t say food,” Wright says. “I would say color.”
For more than 13 years, the Catskill-based photographer and stylist has explored the visual possibilities of ordinary ingredients through Wright Kitchen, attracting nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram. Her work has appeared widely online and was collected in the 2017 coffee-table book Feast Your Eyes (Little, Brown and Company. Now Wright has transformed her photographic archive into two independently published children’s books: Count In Full Color and Find In Full Color.
Wright grew up in San Diego and began taking pictures after her grandparents gave her a camera at age 11. She studied photography but initially earned her living as a computer technician. Looking for relief from the repetitive work, she taught herself to cook and started a food blog in 2013.
At first, Wright photographed each stage of a recipe. Gradually, she became more interested in the ingredients than the finished dishes. Cookbooks lavished attention on the plated meal, she noticed, while the individual carrot, pepper, or citrus fruit was usually treated as a supporting player.
That focus had roots in Wright’s childhood. Her family had little money, and her exposure to fresh food was limited. Learning to cook introduced her to an unsuspected world: unfamiliar spices, varieties of citrus, peppers in startling colors—even carrots that weren’t orange. “I wanted to make that accessible for everyone else to be able to see too, no matter what your wallet looks like,” she says.
Her photographs require patience, organization, a keen eye, and, because food deteriorates, speed. Wright might spend days arranging spices, but sliced apples brown, ice cream melts, and produce wilts. “I need a sharp knife and some speed,” she says.
After eight years in Seattle and a return to San Diego, Wright moved east, living in Woodstock before settling in Catskill a little over a year ago. She had never visited the area and knew almost no one here. The gamble worked. Nature provided an antidote to the strains surrounding her work, even if her earliest companions were woodland creatures. “You just make friends with some squirrels,” she says.
Those strains went well beyond the usual pressures of an artistic career. Wright says her photographs have been reproduced without permission on an enormous scale, sometimes with company logos added and her name removed. More recently, she has encountered AI-generated images derived from her work. Pursuing infringements through lawyers around the world became all-consuming, and the experience damaged her connection to the photographs themselves.
“At one point, I was truly done making art,” Wright says. Grocery shopping became difficult because she would encounter brands she says had used her images without permission.
The children’s books grew from that low point. Wright had imagined making a book for children for more than a decade, and revisiting her archive helped her see the photographs as something beyond evidence of what had been taken from her. They began to feel as though they had been waiting for this purpose.
Designed for children ages zero to three, Count In Full Color is a board book that introduces numbers one through 10 with photographs of fruits and vegetables. One strawberry gives way to two pea pods, with the images becoming progressively more colorful. Wright wanted children to encounter actual foods instead of the generic red apple that often stands in for the whole natural world.
The 32-page hardcover Find In Full Color, intended for ages four and older, turns her elaborate compositions into seek-and-find games. Children search for tomatoes, butterfly-shaped candies, striped lemons, gummy worms, and other objects, then respond to questions about number, texture, position, and pattern. Some have definite answers; others—such as which foods might squish when squeezed—invite conversation and interpretation.
Wright reviewed the books with children, teachers, early-education professionals, a registered dietitian specializing in eating disorders, and people who work with children with autism and learning disabilities. Again and again, readers remarked on how unusual it was to find children’s books built around photographs of real food. (Which caused this writer to ponder why so few children’s books feature photography—most are illustrated.)
The project carries an earlier personal resonance. Hospitalized with severe asthma as a toddler, Wright subsequently needed nightly oxygen treatments for about a year. To help her remain calm beneath the mask, adults encouraged her to locate and point to colors in books. The connection between images, concentration, and comfort stayed with her.
Wright sourced and styled the food, selected the photographs, wrote the prompts, and designed every page. The books are being printed and bound in the United States and are expected to ship in fall 2026. After her experience with a major publisher on Feast Your Eyes, she wanted to control the entire process herself.
The early response to preorders has encouraged Wright to imagine further books. More important, the project has restored a sense of agency after years spent watching her pictures circulate beyond her control. “I feel stronger than I have in a while,” she says. “I feel really empowered.”
Count In Full Color ($12.95) and Find In Full Color ($19.95) are available for preorder at Wrightkitchen.com/books and are expected to ship in fall 2026. Books ordered by September 30 include a surprise 5-by-7-inch print, and all preordered copies of Find In Full Color will be signed by Wright.
