FAQ

It depends on how many images you need and how many days it takes to make them, which is why every project starts with a fit call and an intensive rather than a price list. The Intensives are not sales calls, they are deep dives into your business or cookbook where you walk away with a full strategic outline plus a full shot list. For cookbooks you will also receive both a Bookmap to keep you organized and an outline built like a cookbook so you can start to see the vision come to life. What I can tell you in terms of price point is that my projects are multi-day studio productions, and the intensive is $950 for food and beverage work, $1,500 for cookbooks, with half credited toward your project when you book. If you need some quick social media images that will only survive for 24 hours online, I'm probably not your person. The fit call is built to get that kind of information. I will always be honest with you tell you instead of wasting your time.

Because most of what you're paying for isn't the shutter. A typical production hires a creative director, a food stylist, a set designer, a photographer, and a retoucher, and a full shoot staffed that way runs past $20,000-$50,000. I'm all of those people. That means one vision instead of five, nothing lost in the handoffs, and a plate that gets styled by the same person who's lighting it. The cost reflects the work, not the day rates.

Yes. A cookbook isn't a single shoot day, it's a project that unfolds over months, and the payment schedule follows the work rather than landing all at once. We set the schedule during your intensive so you know every date before you commit. Recipe testing and manuscript writing take time. Paying alongside that work spreads the cost across the same months you're already in, instead of one big lump sum right before we shoot. If your timeline shifts, we talk about it, I'm here to support not to pressure.

That is my goal, but not by cutting corners on the images. What I can control is scope, sequence, and efficiency, which is where being your producer instead of just your photographer pays for itself. I know how many dishes fit in a day, which shots can share a setup, which recipes can be shot together, and which images are doing real work in your book versus which ones you think you need. Tell me your number during the intensive and I'll tell you honestly what it can buy, and whether it's enough.

Studio, always. It's the whole reason my clients get the images they do. In a someone else's kitchen I'm fighting the light, the space, and your service schedule. In my studio I control every variable, which is how you end up with food that looks it's absolute best.

No, and that's the point. You send me the recipes, my team and I execute them here, and you keep running your business. Three days after the last shoot day we meet live for your reveal, where you see the full gallery and mockups of how your images will live on your new website. Most photography costs a chef service days too. This does not.

I do, with my team. I came to photography through a catering business and a cookbook, so I'm not just styling your dish, I'm making it. You send the recipes and any notes about how it's meant to look and be served, and we take it from there. If a dish has a detail only you know, that's what the intensive is for.

It depends on the book, but most fall between 60 and 100 images across recipes, ingredients, process shots, and front matter, and not every recipe gets a photo. Which ones do is a design decision, not a budget one, and it's a lot easier to make before you've tested a hundred recipes. That's what the Book Map sorts out and what we determine during your intensive. Nothing is overlooked.

You need both crafts. Whether that's two people is up to you. Styling and photography are genuinely separate skills and I've spent years on each, which is why nothing gets lost between them. When a stylist hands a plate to a photographer, something always shifts in translation. When it's one person, the dish gets built for the light it's already sitting in. That's what it's like to work with me.

You get full usage rights for your business: your website, your menus, your socials, your marketing, your book. I keep the copyright, which is standard for commercial photography, and I retain the right to show the work in my own portfolio. If you need something broader, like packaging or paid advertising at scale, we sort that out in the intensive so there are no surprises.Read more about copyrights here.