Doing a cookbook: How I decided to document all my family recipes in a cookbook



Some time ago I decided to start documenting my family's recipes. My mom comes from Perú, my father is Argentinean, my grandparents are Chinese and Spanish, so the food at home was extremely diverse.

Just before deciding to move out from home, I decided all this needed to be documented. This is how a journey of documenting more than 60 recipes began for 8 years. Photography of each dish, copywriting of the recipes and graphic design of the book were done by me.






Here are some details of the book and the process I followed to make plus some tips cause everything doesn't always go as planned 😅



As my two previous photobooks (Erasmus photobook and China trip photobook) I decided to print in Blurb (Even though I wish Blurb have sponsored this post, this is not sponsored just honest review haha)



Biggest Learnings of Food Photography as Amateur 

  - Natural light is everything
  - Learn how to do a balance composition, like adding extra elements to the picture, maybe some ingredients, a spoon, another plate, a glass.
  - Play with color contrast and textures!
  - Take the photos fast! (you can tell when the soup you are doing a photo is cold or the ice cream is melting)

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Before making this book I hadn't had any experience in food photography. I started documenting my family recipes just one year before I move away from home, I was 17 years and this was 2011 (left photo). I finally got to finish it in 2019 (right photo). This is the reason that pictures in the book are diverse in quality, they not only reflect my family cuisine but also reflect 8 years of learning and improvement.

 


Handy elements for food photography


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