PROJECTS
AL ROKER’S RECIPES TO LIVE BY
Client: Al Roker and Courtney Roker Laga
Agency: Legacy Lit/Hachette Book Group
Project: Lifestyle and plated recipe photography for Al Roker’s Recipes to Live By cookbook
THE BRIEF
Courtney Roker Laga hired me to create 100 images of plated dishes in studio to accompany the recipes in this cookbook. To make the cookbook relatable, I photographed the cover as well as approximately 20 lifestyle images of Al and Courtney at home preparing some of the more popular images from each section of the cookbook.
THE PLAN
Courtney and I booked a 10-day studio shoot during which she and her assistants styled 10 dishes per day. My lighting plan was to photograph each recipe with beautiful natural-looking light which conveyed the time of day for each recipe (i.e., breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner). I developed the shot list with a few factors in mind to ease workflow — food styling difficulty, lighting and camera changes, and prop styling changes — plus suggested crops, POVs and varied focal lengths to help with the flow of the book.
For a more in-depth look at this project, visit Recipes to Live By.
THE RESULTS
BEHIND THE SCENES
Client AL ROKER | Agency LEGACY LIT/HACHETTE BOOK GROUP | Food Styling COURTNEY ROKER-LAGA | Prop Styling DEB RUGGIERI
Do you need an experienced cookbook photographer who can tackle the logistics plus deliver beautiful images that’ll keep the pages flipping? I have over a decade of experience photographing cookbooks and love the challenge of creating them. Let’s chat!