Insight into a cookbook shoot and my top tips!

So, if I haven’t already blasted it all over my social media enough (and will continue to), I wrote a cookbook! Yayayayay. I’m honestly still pinching myself about it every day. It’s called Chloe’s Vegan Kitchen and it combines plant-based food with mindfulness and self-development tools. It features 90 fresh and easy plant-based recipes plus essays on manifestation, money and relationships. You can shop it HERE!

One of the things you don’t often think about when you pick up a cookbook is the actual shoot process. How do you get all the recipes to look as mouth-watering as possible? How do you get the chef to look cool, calm and collected while cooking in the kitchen? In all honesty, before I went through the process first-hand, I had no idea what to expect. I was used to either filming myself at home on my iPhone or modelling shoots where I just slipped on clothes and pulled my best Zoolander face for a few hours. What I now know for sure is that I didn’t expect how much time, effort and energy goes into one. It was hard, oh so hard, but also extremely rewarding.

To give you a quick run down, the shoot took 10 days. I had a super small team: a photographer, a food stylist and the chef (a.k.a me). I also had Mum’s help to defeat the mammoth pile of dishes accumulated at the end of the day. We shot 10 to 12 recipes every day, which meant I spent the daytime prepping and cooking all the food and the nighttime grocery shopping and prepping the recipes for the following day. It was a 5:30 am rise and grind and a 1 am head to pillow. We had two breaks during the shoot, one after day 3 for three days and one after day 5 for two days. And on the very last day, we decided to shoot lifestyle. Sorry if that sounded overwhelming, but it was, in fact, overwhelming. I would be lying if on days 5 and 8 I didn’t shed a few tears. But, I’d also be lying if by the end of day 10, I didn’t feel like a fricken superwoman and shed a few more tears, this time of joy. I have never felt so much gratitude and euphoria in my life. So, just in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, or if you just have a curious mind like I do, here are my insights and biggest lessons from my cookbook shoot for Chloe’s Vegan Kitchen.

1. Spread the shoot days out: As the shoot was 10 days long, we made sure to slot break days in between the shoot days so we didn’t burn out. Trust me, you are going to need time to recoup, re-energise and prioritise self-care. As I mentioned earlier, we had two breaks. But if I were to do it again, I’d recommend 3 breaks. A schedule similar to this would be perfect: 2 days on, 2 days off, 3 days on, 2 days off, 3 days on, 1 day off and 2 days on or something similar.
2. Get as many people to help as possible (and people you love working with): Don’t underestimate how quickly dirty dishes can stack up or how easy it is to forget to pick up an ingredient. The more hands on deck for the small little tasks, the easier the shoot will be. I had a small (dream) team for the shoot. We all communicated together really well so managed to avoid any major hiccups. A big shoutout to the insanely creative, hardworking and kind Sammy Green Photography And Meryl Batlle. If I were to do the shoot again, however, I would hire 1 to 2 kitchen hands to help prep and cook the food, as well as a dedicated dish pig and grocery store runner. P.S. The more people on the shoot, the more people get to enjoy all of the food!
3. Shoot lifestyle at the start: The closer to the start you can get your lifestyle imagery done, the fresher and more energised you will look and feel. We shot the cookbook cover on the third day which worked a treat! However, I made the mistake of planning to shoot lifestyle on the last day when we were all full and tired (sorry team). But, nether less we powered through and the photos came out beautiful.
4. Plan the recipes you’re shooting each day carefully: We aimed to shoot 10 to 12 recipes per day. My strategy for selecting when to make each recipe was to group ones with common ingredients (so I wasn’t back and forth from the supermarket). I also was cautious of time, so aimed for half of the recipes to be easier ones or ones that I could prep the night before (such as dips or no-bake desserts) and the other half more involved ones to make then and there (such as curries or pastas). Another strategy for grouping recipes could be chapter by chapter (but I personally found this too overwhelming and would get flavour fatigue from tasting too many sweets during the dessert chapters) or by the camera angle of the recipe shot (as the camera equipment can take a while to switch positions).
5. Have coffee on hand: You are going to need it. And a lot of it.

If you have any questions about my book or the cookbook shoot itself, feel free to leave them in the comments section below! You can shop Chloe’s Vegan Kitchen via the link HERE or find it in your local Readings, Dymocks, Big W or Kmart.