Ranch Raised Cookbook... Behind-the-Scenes!
The making of Ranch Raised Cookbook took over two years - one of the longest and most labor intensive projects I’ve ever done! But holding the book in my hand and flipping through the pages of beautiful photos and some of our favorite recipes made it all so worth it. We are getting closer to the release day or “pub date” of September 8, 2020, which also happens to be the Feast Day of Mary! I wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes on how we arrived at the final cover for the cookbook…
We knew we wanted the cover to be photographed up at camp, with the camp kitchen in the background. When my friend and photographer Kathryn Gamble was here for the pre-shoot, we took some practice photos and sent them to my publisher, Sasquatch Books (and arm of Penguin Random House.)
They photoshopped them up a little and came up with these three variations to send to the PRH team to decide which angle they wanted us to take for the final cover shoot. The photoshopped turkey and egg basket crack me up :) But you get the idea!
This was the photo and description of each cover try in the final pitch deck for the cookbook….
This one looks the most “shopped” and was my least favorite so I was glad they didn’t choose this one!
My Carhartt apron was an old favorite that was well used and a little faded, so I had to search high and low for a new one for the final shoot since it was out-of-stock.
And I ended up wearing the same blouse from Boot Barn and since my favorite Nicholson Hat was well loved and a little beat up, she made me a brand new one for the actual cover shot!
This one ended up being the one everyone loved the most, but they wanted a variation with just me as a second option too… so that’s what we tried for on the big cover shoot day at camp!
The Big Shoot Day
So on the day of the big shoot, we had a new apron and a new hat - but the girls were in similar outfits to the practice day (Maisie in exactly the same as the publisher requested!) We had a friend come up to do hair for all of us which was so much fun - and we set up the shot with all five of us and Dixie AND Zippy too!
It was not an easy shoot…. the girls were supposed to be “in action” snapping green beans and eating ribs and giving Zippy the Pony a slice of apple. Zippy ate a LOT of green apples that day! The girls were troopers being cooperative through my closed-teeth-smiling directions (“keep going! don’t stop! keep smiling!”
And then we let the girls go off and play and took the Pony back to his pasture and we shot one with just me in the frame. On the second shot with just me, we actually worked a lot harder to stage the shelves and the background - moving the bread box so the white wouldn’t compete with the lettering, adding flowers, moving food plates, etc. We had a laptop tethered to the camera so we could pop the photos into this practice cover (the logo and lettering ended up moving on the final cover) so we would snap a photo and then analyze every little detail and change it up. Dixie was the best pup and stood patiently on that stool the whole time!
So these were the final two cover tries submitted to the publishing team for review, it was up to them to choose which photo would be the book cover….
And I was so happy they chose this one! The girls were THRILLED to be on the cover (much more thrilled than they were to stand and photograph it :) and Zippy and Dixie and everything going on. Our life is busy and cluttered and rich I feel like this cover conveyed that well - there is a lot going on!
And that was a WRAP! Well, sort of :) we still had lots of work to do to make and photograph most of the 75 recipes and tons of lifestyle photos around the ranch telling the story of Five Marys to share with you.
We hope you love the final product as much as we do!
You can order anywhere books are sold!
More info here on our website:
http://www.fivemarysfarms.com/marys-ranch-raised-cookbook