I am now taking you behind the scenes of the photo shoot for my new book, Joy of Kosher published by William Morrow/Harper Collins, due out Fall 2013. Get excited! Get very!!! excited!
I am working again with the amazing husband wife team , Andrew and Carrie Purcell. He is the photographer and she is the food stylist. I’ve been working with them almost exclusively for the last few years across the site, the mag and this here book.
This shoot lasted 8 straight days (with the exception of Shabbos) and each day was about 9 to 10 hours on set, plus lots of prepping (shopping, cooking and baking) from Carrie on off hours to ensure that we were able to push out about 12-14 shots a day. Carrie and Andrew each had an assistant as did our prop stylist the lovely Paige Hicks to make sure we stayed on schedule.
Let me walk you through it.
This here (the main image above) is our actual “set”. Yes that is an ice cream cone, but no, that’s not ice cream, it’s a surprise!
These are our prop tables, filled with bins of silverware and serving ware, plates of all manner and size and linens and glasses galore. The tables are each about 6 feet long and loaded with props. Props are also stacked underneath the tables. Paige has an ironing board set up in the corner to press the linens before each use.
Here is a step by step look at preparing my chicken sushi recipe.
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The veg is first julienned and sometimes we use a mandolin, sometimes a handheld julienne peeler and sometimes a knife — oh we have many tricks. We also make sure our produce is fresh and vibrant — the colors should be really saturated.
We roll up a few cutlets so we can slice and pick the best looking 6 pieces for our shot.
Paige has shown me a number of selections for the plate, chopsticks and textiles/linens. We take into consideration where the image is falling within the book when we choose the color pallete for the shot. Here I wanted a burst of bright color, that’s why I chose this gorgeous blue platter with an shine and interesting edge. I need something with eye appeal. Once I’ve selected something we all like Paige sets all of the elements on the shoot table. She looks through the camera lens to see what the camera is seeing and moves everything just so until she is happy. Andrew the photographer then snaps and we look at it all and fiddle with it based on the camera angle until we are happy. Andrew will move things or direct Paige, I will make suggestions, it’s a real collaborative effort. We also determine the camera angle based on where the image falls out in the book, for example we try not to put two overhead shots next to one another and so on.
Once we are happy Carrie starts to bring out her tray with the food and a bunch of tools. She saves the finishing touches for on set so stuff doesn’t get stale. Check out her work related injury. She sliced her finger, but Thank G-d the entire finger remained intact and she just needed a little bandage. Occupational hazard.
Just like famous actors, foods have body doubles too. So we stand in a few pieces so Andrew can see how the food is photographing and can adjust the lighting accordingly. He also gives Carrie any notes at this time.
This is the back of Elizabeth’s head, Andrew’s assistant. She sits by the monitor all day marking our selects and taking notes for Andrew for post production. She also adjusts shadows and tones and more under Andrew’s direction. She has THE BEST posture I have ever seen! I kept standing up straight every time I looked at her. And now as I write this I just adjusted my posture.
When judging a photo and giving notes we always do so from the monitor NOT the food on set. Because the monitor capture the image as Andrew snapped it and the perspective is entirely different than what is actually on set based on the angles and how everything on set it reacting to the light.
When we set up overhead shots the food is set on a surface on the floor. Here is Carrie working on my Top of the Rib. I struggled so much with this recipe I wanted to do something uber traditional with just the slightest twist and I finally had an epiphany just days before we shot it — I am so excited I love it! And I know your holiday tables will love it too! We call this pose Carrie is in Food Stylist Yoga. This is not even the craziest position she had to get into to style the food.
Here we are using some crazy industrial paint/wallpaper blow gun on our chicken. When I posted an instagram pict of us “blow-drying” our Turkey twitter went nuts. So this is why we do this: 1) we are cooking about 14 things a day and the oven is going like crazy and we can’t fully cook everything bc we wouldn’t be able to keep to schedule and 2) this gives us a little more control over the browning process, we want golden skin but not too dark because then there is no contrast for the image.
This is our slider stand in/body double. Cute buns!
Here Carrie is “building” my sliders. There are 2 kinds of mayo and crunchy crispy fried onions.
Here is a link to the instagram picts I took throughout the process. Watch the photo board slowly fill up.
As always, any Qs, ask away!
If you missed any of my other Making of a Cookbook articles click here.
Love the food. What happens to all of that afer you take the pictures?
Amazing! It food easier to work with then people?
Wow! Very interesting. Thanks for the behind the scenes look.
I don’t really have any other questions that weren’t answered, but this was a great post – especially since the photo is always the most important thing to me when making a recipe – I love to see what the product should look like.
I really want to know if there is some kind of regulation in case your cookbook has recipes that are very similar to another cook book?
is it bad news to shoot under fluorescentlighting?
brich22 at earthlink dot net
no questions but the photos look great!
How would a person go about do this kind of work.
can I go to the next photo shoot? 😉
can’t wait for the new cookbook!
Lots of Questions
You said you worked on the shoot for 7 days, how many hours a day? Have you lived in Israel before? How many times did you have to cook the recipes to get them ready, for the shoot? What do you do with the food at the end of the shoot?
After intense prepping, cooking and photo shoots like this, do you take a break from the kitchen for a few days?
What other tricks & techniques are used to make the food look more perfect & mouth watering?
ice cream, ices, etc… anything that melts and chicken — I think it’s hard to make chicken on the bone look really pretty (but that’s just a personal pet peeve of mine)
photograph them fresh and right away – if something is taking to long and starts to go we have to make another one
you are assuming correct
hi Tali! of course I know you would. The stylist brings all his/her tools — they tools are not kosher of course bc it’s their tool kit BUT I am not tasting/eating the food so that is not an issue.
sometimes it is – but usually not — even and usually with real restaurant “chefs” you have to know how to style for the camera — some food bloggers who take their own picts do as well as some cookbook authors are natural stylists – but it is two different skill sets
am going slightly crazy 🙂
VERY :-)!!! thanks can’t wait for you all to enjoy it.
TV, Movies, Books – it’s all “Hollywood” but I do try my best to make food that anyone can recreate AND to go to overboard with any of the styling — but really the camera and lights make things look different — like when you are under TV lights you have to wear ALOT of makeup just to look natural bc the lights wash you out — also note here — the right plate/platter helps food pop/look pretty – it’s all about presentation 🙂
lol I am not even sure I am expressing the half of it! Thanks Sarah for your support always!
Yay Thanks Victoria!
Thanx for taking us behind the scenes! Loved all the pics. I would like to go into food styling, so it’s interesting to see. I love how there is so many interesting ways to food style.
Does any of the food get eaten at the end or is it all just thrown out?
Thanks for taking us behind the scenes, it’s awesome! I love that sushi photo, it’s beautiful! I can’t wait to see it in print!
The picture is a rally important part of a recipe for me. How the finished item looks lures me to making the item and when I, finished I want it to look like what I saw. Thank you for always using such great expression to e tice me to keep cooking!
Wow! Very impressive! Looking forward to the new cookbook!
How do you decide what to put in the cookbook? What would you do if you had a great recipe but it just didn’t photograph well?
I didn’t know it was so complicated
What is the hardest food to photograph?
Do you ever use shaving cream instead of whipped cream etc or is everything always real?
very very cool!
love the blown dried turkey!
This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
What is the hardest thing to get perfect to photograph?
cant wait to host you in my home for a cooking demo
For the hobbiest photographer & blogger, what is the best lens zoom and aperture settings to get good food photos?
Thanks for the tips! Now all I need is the ability to “build” a image. I keep forgetting that the background props are important to enhance the food.
What is the hardest food to photograph for a cookbook?
I love seeing all of these behind-the-scenes photos! Fantastic!
i always wonder how you keep things from melting or wilting.
This is my favorite post! Love seeing the action behind the lens.
I’m assuming all the food isn’t kosher, after all it’s made purely for the pictures. So I’m assuming it doesn’t matter where the ingredients/utensils come from
Really interesting.
Loved this post (but of course I did)!
Who brings the cooking equipment — the cutting boards, knives, baking trays, mandoline, etc. — and the appliances (oven, etc.)? Is everything that you shoot kosher?
(I know all the ingredients are kosher, of course, I’m just wondering how this works at a professional photo studio that probably shoots images for tons of other food projects.)
I always wondered whether the food in the books was made by the actual cookbook author/chef! Thanks for inside look!
Wow! Can’t wait either….thanks for the sneak peek! a whole lot of work….How do you manage this along with making aliyah!?☺
I wonder how expensive it is to do all this. I can’t wait to get the new book 🙂
It’s nice to know I can’t expect to replicate the image in the book!
I am so amazed how much work goes into the pictures! I thought the little bit DH and I do is diffucult! So excited for this new book-cannot wait!
Thank you so much for this behind the scenes look! It’s so awesome to see what goes into the making of a cookbook (especially one’s as great as yours!). Very excited indeed!