Cookbooks

A cookbook has to hold together from the first page to the last

A book carries one visual language across a hundred and fifty photographs, keeps a reader turning pages, and has to come back from the printer looking the way it looked on the screen. I shoot full cookbook series for chefs, restaurants and food brands, and I have taken seven of my own titles from the first frame through to publication.

Discuss a book

Why it is harder

Why a book is harder than a menu

A menu photograph is judged on its own, beside a price. A book photograph is judged against the hundred and forty-nine photographs around it, and that changes everything about how it gets made.

Published titles I photographed, produced and took through to print myself.

150

Photographs a book has to hold in one visual language, shot weeks apart.

Proof checked before the run. Colour that looks right on a monitor can come back from the press muddy.

What is included

What the project includes

Concept and structure

Before anything is cooked we decide what the book actually is: who reads it, how many recipes it carries, how the chapters break and what a reader should feel turning the pages. Most books that fail were never properly decided at this stage.

Photography

Dishes, process, ingredients, hands, the room and portraits of the chef, shot in blocks across several days. A lighting standard is fixed on the first day and held to the last one.

Styling

I style on set myself, as I do on every shoot. On a book this matters more than anywhere else, because prop consistency across a hundred and fifty images is exactly what readers notice without being able to name it.

Layout and design

Photographs placed into a designed book rather than dropped into a template, with recipe pages a reader can genuinely cook from. The text and the image do different jobs on the page.

Print preparation

Colour prepared for the press rather than the screen, correct resolution and bleed, and a proof checked before the run begins. This step decides whether the finished book looks like the shoot.

Working with a publisher

Where there is a publisher I work to their specification and deliver exactly what their production team asks for, and where there is none I can coordinate the printer directly.

Published work

Seven published titles

Baker's hands clapping flour over a board with eggs, dark background, photo by Alex Slyadnev

Pierogi

More Than a Book, Less Than a National Taste Guide. Dumplings, the tradition around them and the recipes behind them.

Published, available on Amazon

Hummus

Something About Food, East and Love. Hummus recipes gathered from kitchens across the world.

Published in English and Russian editions

Layered strawberry cream cake with freeze-dried strawberry pieces, photo by Alex Slyadnev

Mmm... Desserts!

Eleven of the best dessert recipes from chefs in several countries.

Published, available on Amazon

Mussels in creamy garlic sauce with lime and grilled bread, photo by Alex Slyadnev

Street Food at Home

The world's best street food, rewritten so that it can be cooked in a home kitchen.

Published, available on Amazon

Glass of red wine shattering mid-air, high-speed beverage photography, photo by Alex Slyadnev

Christmas Whisky Cocktails

Whisky-based cocktails built for the season, shot as a short gift book.

Published in English and Russian editions

Ukrainian borscht with rye bread, salo and mushroom soup on rustic table, photo by Alex Slyadnev

Odessa's Snacks

Traditional Jewish recipes of Odesa, collected from the families who still cook them.

Published, available on Amazon

Rustic sourdough bread loaves on wooden boards, photo by Alex Slyadnev

Listening to Tuscany

A gastronomic guide for travellers and food lovers, built around the region's own producers.

Published

How I work

Every frame is approved before we move on

Every frame goes onto the screen the moment it is taken, while the dish is still on set. You say what is wrong and it is changed right there, so nothing leaves the shoot unapproved.

Reshoots requested by a client in twenty years of working this way.

Questions

What chefs ask before starting a book

How long does a cookbook take?

Months rather than weeks, and most of that time is not photography. The shooting itself is usually a handful of days spread across several blocks, while the concept, the layout and the print preparation set the real calendar. You will get a realistic schedule after our first conversation, planned backwards from your publication date.

Do we need a publisher?

Many restaurant books are self-published and sold in the dining room, and that is often the better business, because the margin stays with you and the print run matches the demand you actually have. If you do want a publisher, the book is prepared to their specification from the start.

Who writes the recipes?

Your chef writes them, and my responsibility is the visual side and the production. Where recipes need editing for a home kitchen, which is almost always the case, that is worth budgeting separately and I can point you toward people who do it well.

Can we shoot the book and the menu at the same time?

Partly, and it is worth planning for. The dishes overlap so a good deal of the cooking is shared, and cooking is the expensive part. The photographs themselves are not shared, because a book frame and a menu frame are lit and cropped differently.

What happens if the printed colour comes back wrong?

It should not, because files are prepared for your specific press and paper and a proof is checked before the run. That check is the reason this does not go wrong, and it is not a step worth skipping when the schedule gets tight.

Who owns the photographs?

The photographs are yours for the book and for the promotion around it. Uses beyond that, such as a separate advertising campaign, are agreed in advance. I keep the right to show the work in my portfolio once the book has been published.

Next step

Tell me about the book

Send me the idea, roughly how many recipes you are thinking of and when you would want it in print. Even when it is still only an idea this is the right moment to talk, because the books that go well are the ones where the photography plan and the recipe list were decided together.

Discuss a book

Process

From the first call to photos ready for publication

01Step 1 · Consultation

or message me directly

Planning

We build a shot list together, then I select props and backgrounds for your dishes.

Shoot day

I arrive with lighting and props and shoot right in your dining room before opening.

Delivery

I select the strongest shots myself and send you a finished gallery.