Case Study - Just Desserts Cookbook

Client Background

We were approached by an author, looking for a cookbook photographer in Maryland to help illustrate her self published cookbook. She had approximately 50 dessert recipes she was hoping to photograph, along with some process shots and tools of the trade.

Challenges

The author/client was self publishing, and as such was funding the production of the images herself. This placed constraints on the budget and production levels. However, the client did have experience in production and styling, and was able to take on many of the production aspects herself. We determined that shooting on location at her residence was best, as this allowed her to prepare for the shoots efficiently.

Concept Development -

Having never worked with a professional food photographer, or food stylist, our client needed some guidance on the process and was looking for advice on how to efficiently tackle the project. At our first production meeting, the client, cookbook photographer, and food stylist reviewed the project outline, shot list and source books provided by the client. She had a good overall vision and concept in mind already - which was very helpful. We broke the shot list down into individual shoot days and began scheduling out a few weeks in advance. We settled on shooting 5-8 recipes per day - on average. This allowed the chef to prepare the product in the days preceding the shoot. Since we were working out of her home, she had limited storage space for props and finished baked goods - so this 5-8 number fit well within the logistics of the shoot.

Execution -

Pre-production - The client’s concept was to have each of these look as if they were on a bakers kitchen table, or counter. She wanted to put the reader into a mindset of confidence and put them at ease. As such, we literally shot on her kitchen table. But we altered each setup slightly with props and lighting to fit the recipe’s we were shooting. Both the food stylist, and studio team have a prop collection to pull from, and the client had some as well. Between us, prop acquisition was minimal. The client conferred with the food stylist on any special tips or tricks to help things move along smoothly. One advantage to an entire project of desserts, is that most of them are pretty stable once completed, and can wait a day or two to be photographed.

Shoot day(s) - The project was completed over 10 shoot days spread out several weeks apart. Since we were working in the client’s home, setup and load out had to occur on each of these days. However, the location had good natural light and we were able to take advantage of that light pretty regularly, minimizing the gear needed.

Post production - We spent a lot of time on set minimizing the amount of retouching and post production that would be needed. Ten seconds with a pair of tweezers and a steady hand (food stylist hands, not mine!) can save 10 minutes of retouching in Photoshop. Therefore post production was limited to general color correction and global adjustments. There were challenges with color management on this project as the printer could not provide a specific color profile to embed. In the end, we delivered files with a generic SWOP profile and implored the printer to properly color manage on their end. We also provided a set of color proofs to the client to aid in this endeavor.