$10 Meals with Chelsea - Cookbook Photography & Styling Behind The Scenes

$10 Meals With Chelsea hit stores on the 23rd of April 2024!!! So exciting. Chelsea entrusted me with the photography and styling for this book and to see it come alive in paper form on bookshelves is a pinch me moment for her and me! I 💯% believe in the recipes in these books because they are not only tasty but will save you money on your groceries and time in the kitchen.

We shot the cookbook starting late winter 2023 into spring. 75+ recipes to cook, style and photograph. Chelsea is from Brisbane so she travelled up twice a week for 5-6 weeks to shoot the cookbook in my kitchen studio - Millview Studio. From here along with my assistant & a kitchen helper, Chelsea cooked all the recipes while I styled and shot them. We averaged about 8-10 recipes per shoot day and there were some big days in the kitchen.

To be as efficient as possible with our time we had a pre-planning meeting at the start of each week to plan out the recipes and photography style for each recipe we would be shooting that week. Izzy from Penguin Random House guided both Chelsea and I in what would look good for the layout of the book in regards to backgrounds, what angle the photograph needed to be taken on as well as props etc. From this I pulled together the props for each shoot week and they were ready to go on the day to plate each recipe up. We tweaked here and there as we went along but the foundation was always laid out before we started. This helped with efficiency and mental & creative fatigue as the day went along. Once you were 7 recipes deep into a 10 recipe day sometimes you are working on auto pilot! :P

After every shoot day I printed the roughly edited photographs to add to our cookbook wall to see our progress and to also refer back to as well got deeper into the book to make sure we didn’t double on similar props or styling. This helped keep continuity throughout the back but also keeping it fresh for every shot. It also gave us a little count down of how many recipes we had left to do. I also sent these roughly edited shots to the publisher for points of reference for them for our weekly planning meetings.

I totally thought I would have enough props to style and shoot 75 recipes but after a couple of days it became apparent we would need more french pan style casserole dishes, and large dishes to house soups and stews as well a few more bowls types. Thankfully I had a few days to prep for each shoot so I did a few op shop runs and was able to find a few gems that were included in the cookbook like this lovely rustic dish we used in the Lamb Harira recipe below. I also visited Myers as they have a lovely range or ceramics and that is one of my go-to places to pick up some pieces for the prop collection.

Once we finalised all the recipe shots for the book we then worked out incidental shots & lifestyle author shots that were required for the remaining pages for the cookbook. The incidental shots were things like for the chapter covers, pantry staples and little additions throughout the book. The author shots we took in various outfits doing various things so that Chelsea had some variety to use throughout the book but also for her new website, author appearances and media uses.

We took these shots in the Millview Studio kitchen which came up great (if I don’t say so myself). This is my second cookbook that I have shot and each cookbook is vastly different in it’s approach and execution. It was such a pleasure to work with Chelsea and the penguin team to put this book together. I would highly recommend checking it out considering the rise in the cost of living at the moment. I use this book every week - no lie and our family loves it. I highly recommend the Vietnamese meatballs - delish.

If you have a cookbook or recipes that require the need to be photographed and styled make sure you get in touch as I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have. :-)