Writing a Cookbook Part 6: photography

Photography is expensive, but few cookbooks do without it today: good photos can sell a book, and set standards of style and innovation that sometime text alone cannot reach. A good picture can say a lot, and its impact is instant.

I was introduced to my photographer by my publisher, it was up to me to choose if I wanted to work with him, of course, but after meeting him, and seeing his work in other books, and talking about what I wanted, I thought that his style of work suited me. Cookbook publishers may work with different photographers, and a good publisher will introduce the photographer they may think more suitable for your style of work, or for the type of book.

As an author you generally have to pay the photographer or, as in my case (and most cases I know) split royalties. It may sound strange: a writer spends months writing and cooking and the photographer just a few days shooting and adjusting the photos, but this is the reality of the trade, and it is the same for magazine work.

With royalties both author and photographer work on a risk: if the book sells well it is good for both, otherwise it was an expensive exercise. But as I said before, you don’t write a book just for money, you write a book to share something, for profile, and self-satisfaction. This is true for most photographers also: a photographer who has worked on books has something important to show in his portfolio, and there is nothing that has as much weight as a book. And the photographer becomes the co-author, his or her name running along side that of the author.

If you are a photographer and you would like to do a book, send your CV to a publisher (actually, send it to different publishers) and offer your services. Usually an author sends a book proposal or manuscript, and photographer a CV.

I am on my third book with the same photographer now. The publisher knows that we work well as a team now, and that we will deliver.

Shooting is hard work and you need to work well together, and to have similar tastes. But not too much!

I’ll give you an example: I don’t like over-propping, and I don’t like close-ups that are so ‘close’ that a piece of cake is as big as the page and you can’t understand what the cake was supposed to look like. In this we are alike. But I can be quite ‘girly’ at time, and I work well with a man photographer because he keeps me in line when I go too ‘pink’. We may look at props together, I see a lovely flowery pattern and go “ohhhh!” and he goes “mmmh”.

Other times is the opposite, he likes something ‘quirky’, and I go ‘mmmh’! The end result is always good because it is something we both like and that work for that particular picture. I also like a photographer who has a good eye for styling and colours, and as a bonus my photographer can iron (lots of ironing involved here, but I will talk about that in another post).

Bloggers are usually both photographer and writer, some blogs look good, of course, but for books I think that it is better to split jobs. If you are both a food writer and a photographer… well, fantastic! But a book is not a blog, and you will probably need to get another person involved to help you, either a stylist or a cook to prepare the food to be shot. Two minds are better than one, and four eyes better than two.

More about photography and styling in the next post.

Ciao

A.