With just a few days left until Eat Yourself Beautiful hits book shops this Friday (eeek!), I wanted to share some of the behind the scenes shots from the book shoot back in February of this year.
With the help of an incredible team of people, we managed to shoot all of the food photos, the cover and the pics of me inside the book, in the space of five days. Easier said than done!
Eat Yourself Beautiful Book Shoot
The first day of the shoot was all about the breakfast recipes. We did the whole book shoot in the Bulthaup show kitchen on Hanover Quay, Dublin 2. It’s a slick, modern design, full of smooth wood surfaces and stainless steel, plus the most up-to-date kitchen gadgets, including a huuuuge fridge to store the mountains of food š
Eat Yourself Beautiful Book Shoot Day 2
The food photographer was Neil Hurley, while Anne Marie Tobin of Stylish Food was in charge of making my recipes look their very best for the pictures! I’m so fascinated by food styling, and especially the art of making food look as tasty as possible for a cookbook. I picked up plenty of tips from Anne and her team to help with my amateur food styling experiments at home š
She brought along boxes and boxes of plates, cutlery, jugs, jars and various other props to play around with. I was in heaven admiring the various vintage bowls and cute bottles and jars. If only I had the extra space in my own kitchen for all of them!
Another perk of the shoot was being able to enjoy the leftovers at the end of each day š
The main cover shoot for the book, plus most of the shots of me inside, took place on the Wednesday. We all assembled at photographer Barry McCall’s spacious studio at some ungodly hour of the morning, and I started in hair and make-up…
My glam squad for the day were the super-talented Michelle Regazzoli-Stone on make-up and David Cashman of Reds Hair Salon in charge of taming my bed-head hair.
We had all agreed that a natural, glowy look would be perfect for the style of the shoot. So Michelle opted for a really dewy foundation, avoided using powder, and brushed a light bronzer across my cheeks and forehead. She kept my eye make-up really simple, though I’d had a little bit of help in the eyelash department from the girls at Up To My Eyes! My hair was kept simple, with a gentle wave to achieve a relaxed, beachy texture.
Eat Yourself Beautiful Book Shoot Day 3 – Cover Shoot Make-up
I did my own styling for the shoot, as I wanted to keep the clothes really relaxed, casual and in clean, fresh colours to tie in well with the book’s design. So I opted for lots of white, denims and blues.
Eat Yourself Beautiful Book Shoot Day 3
The only dressy outfit was this House of CB Fabrizia white fluted-hem dress (Ā£119)….
Which featured in this leafy pic!
Barry is an incredibly respected and experienced photographer, and it’s such a pleasure to work with him…
Eat Yourself Beautiful Book Shoot Day 3 – Cover Shoot
He always gets the mood of the shot spot-on and comes up with fun ways to take the pic…
I had brought along plenty of foodie props for the day, including this jar of vanilla overnight oats with chia jam and blueberries. I was starving at this stage of the day, so had a sneaky nibble after the photo was taken!
Eat Yourself Beautiful Book Shoot Day 3 – Cover Shoot – Behind the Scenes
Day 4 of the shoot was back in the Bulthaup kitchen, and we focused on shooting the main courses. Everyone enjoyed watching my spiraliser in action!
Eat Yourself Beautiful Book Shoot Day 4
On the final day, we finished up the final salads, wraps and soups and I enjoyed getting creative with this quinoa sushi recipe š
Eat Yourself Beautiful Book Shoot Day 5
Thank you so much to the amazing team of people for making this book a dream come true for me, from all at Gill & Macmillan for their support, to the photographers, food prep team, Michelle and David on make-up and hair, and all else involved in making this happen. I’m so incredibly grateful!