Featured Artist
CHAVA OROPESA
Photographer & Creative Director
Meet Chava Oropesa. An Oakland, CA based Photographer & Creative Director
Originally from Mexico City, Chava is known for bold, colorful food and beverage photography. Chava helps brands turn products into cravings. With clients ranging from neighborhood bakeries to McDonald's, Google, and Philz Coffee. Off set, he's driven by a deep love of magical realism and the recipes his mother left behind, both of which shape the emotional, story-driven quality of his work.
Chava's work is rooted in his Mexico City heritage, giving his color and mood a distinct, unmistakable command.
From Philz Coffee to McDonald's to Google, Chava's photography has helped brands turn products into cravings.
Beyond stills, Chava brings the same energy to stop-motion — frame-by-frame storytelling built to stop the scroll.
Whether he's behind the lens for a national brand or crafting a stop-motion sequence frame by frame, Chava treats every shoot as a chance to turn flavor into feeling.
In The Works —
Chava sat down with us for a full conversation — Episode dropping soon.
Find Chava on Social Media
Who is Chava Oropesa
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Magical realism — books like One Hundred Years of Solitude and Like Water for Chocolate have shaped how Chava sees food and storytelling. He loves how Like Water for Chocolate opens each chapter with a recipe that carries real emotional weight — which is exactly what he chases in his own images: creating an emotional connection through food.
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Reading, especially magical realism, and — when work allows — cooking from his late mother's handwritten cookbook, filled with the humble home-cooked Mexican meals she made for his family growing up.
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We loved this piece.
Chava treats every new collaborator relationship like a first coffee date — sitting down to learn how someone works and communicates before ever stepping on set together. If it clicks, it turns into real work down the line.
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Don't wait for client work to create. Chava's monthly newsletter started as a personal project shooting his mom's recipes — now it's a commitment he keeps "rain or shine," and it's brought clients back asking for more.