330: Honing Your Craft – How Ana Zelić Improved Her Food Photography Skills and Got Her Debut Cookbook Deal

Hello, hello, hello.

You're listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast.

This is Bjork. Today we're going to be talking to Ana from Ana's Baking Chronicles, and she's going to be talking about her journey into blogging full time, what that was like in the kind of stress around doing multiple things at once, how she had to pull that off. She's going to be talking about doing her master's degree, doing a cookbook. She was working full time at her dad's business, which was in a very involved position, and then also working on her site, building her Instagram following to almost 45,000 followers and how she was able to manage all of these things. That's a portion of what we're going to be talking about. She's also going to be sharing photography and how she documents such beautiful photographs and the significance of photography for capturing attention. And a great example of that is somebody coming to your site, seeing beautiful photography and thinking this person could document and create a cookbook, which she's going to be talking about what that journey was like for her. So she's an extremely talented content creator, very talented photographer, and we're going to be digging into all of those things and trying to pull out some little pieces for you, the podcast listener, that you can apply to your work, whether that be kind of the day to day, in and out daily grind, or whether that be your art, your photography, your videography, whatever it might be. It's going to be a great conversation. So let's go ahead and jump in. Ana, welcome to the podcast.

Hi. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, it's going to be a great conversation. We're going to be talking about a few different things. One of the things that I'm most interested in hearing about with your story is something that, you know, whenever we do these podcasts, we have a little preamble, we have a little conversation, then we hit record and we record it again. But I want to touch on some of the things that we actually talked on before we hit record. First of all, I want to hear a little bit about your story because within the year, you've transitioned to focusing on your blog, your Instagram account, and writing a cookbook and doing that full time. So before you were doing that, what was your focus? What did your days look like? And then we'll talk about what the transition was like after that.

Well, I've actually had quite a few transitions before this one. My, the biggest one was actually transitioning from a full time student to a full time Adult with a job.

Yeah.

And I got the job. I started working for my dad right after I graduated. So that was also kind of stressful. Yeah.

Was it stressful because of the work or was it stressful like you're working in a family business with your dad or maybe both?

Both. Yeah, it was. It was both because it was like, literally a month after I graduated, you know, so I didn't, like, have like, much free time to focus on the blog. And I really. I just. I just started my blog three months before I graduated, so it was all very, you know, fresh.

Yeah. Did you know at the time you like, hey, I want to start this blog and I want to build this into a profession? Or was it kind of a side hobby or what was it?

Definitely not. I mean, I. I actually started a blog after one Croatian website, food website, contacted me and asked, oh, if I. If I. If I have a blog. Because I posted my cakes on Instagram. And after that I got that idea. Maybe I could. I could make a blog, you know?

How long have you been building your Instagram account at that point?

At that point, it was. It was April or May 2018. I maybe had like 200, 400 followers. Like, really nothing. It was. It was just a. It was just a side hobby for me while I was finishing my school, you know.

Sure.

And after that, I really started focusing more on that because I always liked baking and everything. And then I made my blog. It took me a full month because I didn't know anything about WordPress domains.

And everybody can relate. There's so much to.

Yeah, yeah. And it's. It's taken me like a full month to actually, like, push my site live. But one thing that I did know was that I really wanted to write in English. So even though I didn't know at the time that I had like, this opportunity to maybe make that my profession, every choice that I made, I kind of make sure that if I ever got to that point, I'm like, I had a good start.

So, yeah, interesting. Smart of you to say, hey, I'm going to start this. And I'm not going to view it as my profession right away, but I want to leave the door open if it should find success in a certain way, so that foundationally I have the ability to kind of scale and build. And was the idea with writing in English that, you know, you wanted to focus on the US Market for, like, sponsored content or advertising, or is it more of just reach in general? What was. What was kind of the thought process with that honestly, hard decision or not.

It was an easy decision. And it's kind of not based on any of what you said, because a lot of the things regarding the baking, especially cakes.

Sure.

I've actually learned English, so a lot of terms and the baking vocabulary that I knew was actually in English. And I just felt this sort of like a freedom of writing in a foreign language. You know, it's not like I'm totally vulnerable. It's like I have this mask of a. Of a foreign language. And then of course, the second reason is, I mean, everyone speaks in English, you know, so eventually if I, if I made this into a job, then the reach would be wider.

Yeah, that's great. And that has happened. You know, You've mentioned having 200, 400 follow followers on Instagram, and now, you know, I think almost 45,000. Is that.

Yeah, right.

And in growing your blog and also doing a cookbook deal, um, can you talk about. So you talked about the transition of going from kind of student to working full time. And I remember that transition myself when out of school. I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I show up at 8 and then I'm just here until 5. It's just like, it feels like such a weird transition compared to what it's like as a student when your schedule isn't. You still have long days, but it's not like, you know, the same strict. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was it that you were doing with your dad in terms of business and what did your job look like in that role?

I mean, I started like any regular junior. I mean, there, there wasn't any sort of methodism in the, in the beginning. You know, they really wanted me to get to know the like, base processes they're in. They are an IT firm. Okay. So they, they do some of the software and stuff. So. So my goal is to make sure to collect all the information so the developers can make the best app possible. Because I graduated in economics and their goal kind of with me, he told me that later on was to navigate toward finance of the firm and everything later on. But I couldn't let go of my blog. So it was very. It was, it was, it was hard because my blog was just more, more creative and more challenging for me than staying in an, in an, in an office. You know, I mean, if I, if I didn't have the blog, maybe I would have been more interested in, in that field, in that work, but I feel like I'm, I'm destined to do some more creative work and just Office research work.

Sure, sure. And Instagram account in the blog, on his bacon chronicles. Want to make sure to mention that? At what point did the, did you know that a cookbook deal was going to happen? And had you made the decision to transition into focusing on your blog and your Instagram account before that or was it after the deal and you were like, okay, I know this is going to be focus for me. I need to have the space and time to do it. You know, you can't be a. It's really hard to keep up a blog, Instagram account, write a cookbook and to work a full time job.

Yeah, Cookbook day was not planned at all. It was actually a shock to me and it came after I made the decision to focus more on the blog. So 2019. Yeah, like this summer or autumn, I kind of started pushing more and more content, focusing on my Instagram, on the blog, on building traffic. Because at that point, or better said, until that point I didn't really know SEO or like anything like keyword research. I didn't do anything. So most of my traffic was actually luck. I think I like, I picked very lucky keywords that ended up ranking first. And then after that point I just, you know, I knew about media, vine and stuff, so I really focused on just growing my, my traffic while working. So there were times when I, when I would take images like at 6am just, just for work. Yeah, it was, yeah, the time that.

You had like early mornings, you know, lunch break, late at night.

Yeah, yeah, very related. But. And then, and then I think it was March last year. I got this email and at first I thought it was a scam, it was a spam. Who would ask me to write a book? At that point it seemed kind of incredible. And then I googled publisher and then I realized, oh, they are real and I actually have one of their books. And then I was just shocked, positively.

What was that process like in terms of going through a cookbook deal, creating the content for it, and any advice that you'd give for people who are in a similar position either looking to do a cookbook deal or people who are still early on but want to set up a foundation of success so somebody might reach out to them and say in a similar way, My guess is there was something that stuck out about the content that you were creating that made people think, hey, there might be potential for a cookbook deal here. So any advice that you'd have for people either about the process itself or potentially how to create content that might catch the Eye of a publisher.

Well, I think one of the main reasons was maybe my photography at the time. I was also very focused on just developing my photography skills. So I think that since I knew how to present my food in a nice way, that that might have caught the eye of the publisher as well. But you know, I don't have like any, I feel, real advice, except that I just feel that if you're doing what you feel is right and what you want to do, and if you just put all of yourself in it, I feel like there will come a time when your hard work will be recognized at some point.

Yeah, it takes a lot of it. It's hours and hours and there's the concept of 10,000 hours. This idea of 10,000 hours is what you need to become kind of an expert or a master in a certain catego. Um, and that's a lot. You know, it's like a full time job for five years is, you know, 2,000 hours a year. Five years, 10,000 hours. Um, but to your point, I think if you are getting better, if you are doing good work and if you're putting that work into the world, there's a really good chance that people are going to come across that and recognize that as good work. Um, what is in terms of your photography journey? What did that look like in terms of where you started? Did you have any ideas about photography or. No best practices? And then how did you quickly learn in order to get to a place where a publisher can look at it and be like, oh my gosh, this is great photography. We should work with this person.

Yeah, well, I started very early on learning about photography, even before I started kind of posting on Instagram and before my blog because I'm a kind of person that I really need to learn as much of the, of the basics as possible before I venture into something. Part of it is because I don't want to like majorly embarrass myself, but I do have like perfectionism issues definitely. So I actually started learning on my own. Joni Simon actually I started watching her videos in the late 2017 and she taught me how to use a camera in manual mode before I even got the camera because I really.

You were way ahead of it. You don't even have the camera and you're learning how to use it.

No, I just, it's, it's the, it's the way I am sure. You know, I just thought if I learn a lot of, a lot about it, maybe then I will knew. Okay, this is, no, this is for me, or I really want to do this, or this is the camera that I want to get. You know, I just, I need like a base of information and then I can build on. Yeah. And then, you know, I started myself learning and shooting and then I saw it was summer, I think 2018, photography school was having a sale from. That's a Broma bakery course.

Sure.

But at the time, you know, I was just finishing my school, I didn't really have any money.

Yeah.

So one, One, like, major point for me with that, like when I got my job, my first, like, half of my first paycheck went into that course.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I just, I kept making these investment decisions when I thought they were right, you know, even though I, you know, didn't quite know, oh, I really want to do this. But I feel like underneath it all, subconsciously, I kind of did know that, like, this is what I want to do, you know.

So it's one of the recurring things that we hear people talk a lot about is investing in education. They just like, I want to learn this thing. I want to get better. I'm going to go through a food photography class course. I know Lindsay has done multiple, like, in person photography classes where you just block out the time and you say, I want to learn about this. Most recently, I'm going through a course and it's like Food Blogger Pro, but except for Food Blogger Pro, it's like Growth university. That's what it's called. So it's all about software and SaaS and growing software businesses and it's really fun to learn. And I think sometimes I forget how great it is to learn. I've been away from school probably longer than you have, and so it's fun for me to get back into that. But it's a really common theme that we hear on the podcast is people saying, I had this thing that I wanted to learn, I want to get better at it. And there's options to. To your point, talking about, you know, some YouTube classes and content and that you can go through and, and occasionally courses you can go through as well. For you, what do you feel like were the biggest takeaways? I heard you talk about manual mode, how to control your camera so you're not just shooting, you know, an automatic and really adjusting aperture and, and, you.

Know, the shutter speed, ISO, everything. Yeah, I.

So yeah. What were the other pieces that you felt like were helpful in your photography journey to help you understand how to take better photos?

Well, shortly after photography school, I actually enrolled into Artificial lightning course from Joni. Because it was winter then and I was working and I just, I couldn't squeeze everything that I, that I, I wanted to shoot over the weekend, you know, So I, you know, I quickly realized this is what I want to know. So one of the, I think biggest takeaways from my photography is definitely learning how to manipulate light. Because oftentimes it's light that makes a great photography. I mean, of course you do need composition, also editing skills. I feel like there are some people who feel like editing is like photoshopping in a negative way, but it's not. It's just, you know, camera doesn't see what you see. Camera sees in her own ways. But I want to use that camera to make my own vision and I just need editing to make that happen.

Yeah. So Lightroom or Photoshop, what is your preferred tool to edit?

My preferred. It's Lightroom. I mean, it's much easier and intuitive than Photoshop. I did started learning Photoshop last year because I needed to do some composites for my, for my book. But I'm not really still like Photoshop savvy like I am in Lightroom. But yeah, I would say definitely lightning. Sorry.

Sure, sure.

That makes sense for sure. The significance of lighting and the impact that light can have on a image. What do you use for your artificial light? Do you have like a set of lights that you really like? What does that set up?

I actually still have the flash that I bought when I enrolled in the course two and a half years ago. Actually more almost three. It's just like a mid range Godox. But I do have two or three softboxes. I have like a really big one. I think it's 47 inch one. And then I have some smaller ones when I, when I want to recreate like a small window and stuff like that.

Is that the idea with the softbox is it's almost like. So if anybody were to see me, you'd see over my right shoulder I have an actual window. But that potentially could just be a fake window with a big like softbox. Nobody'd really know. Is it kind of the same idea where you're essentially replicating what a window would look like when doing a shoot?

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I would like just physically move the light maybe like slightly in front of the food, but to still be like a sidelight when I. So that there's that like a shadow that a window would naturally create on the back. And yeah, I love to play with light and shadows like when people Want to create light and airy images. They often shut down shadows, like totally. And I feel like, no, you need some contrast. It's still light, it's still airy, but you need that three dimensionality to really make the image pop.

So do you use. So you have a big softbox? It's kind of like a light. Do you have a reflector on the other side or do you put another kind of more, less powerful softbox? And then how does the flash play into it as well?

So I only use one source of light. One. One flash. I don't have any other. I do have a reflector that I will use, that I will use occasionally, but I will, I would, I won't like, put it totally next to the food because I still want to keep some of that shadow. But there are times when I just don't use reflector because I want to make some drama and I want to make like it's a really sunny summer day. But I mean, you only, you only really need one light. And then, and then you can use whatever you have at home to block some of that light or reflect some of that light.

That's great. So when you say a flash is the softbox, the flash like is. That's. What is that what's flashing? Or is softbox always on? And then you have like a. Another flash somewhere else.

So inside that, that, that softbox you have like a flash unit. So you can choose. So that, that flash unit is. How do you say, exists for. On. On its own. So it's just, you know, it's unit for itself. And then I have three soft boxes of different sizes that I put onto the light stand. And then that flash just flashes the light onto that softbox, which then disperses the light onto the sea.

Got it. So you have one light source.

Yeah.

And then you can switch out the type of soft box depending on what you want the light to look like. So, which is interesting. It's like, you know, you only need one light source if you're only going to have the light coming from one direction. And so you were saying before, you might want to have it look like a small window, in which case you'll put that flash behind a smaller softbox. Or if you want it really to be dispersed and kind of diffused in a big area, then you're going to put the larger, soft, large one. Yeah, that makes sense. In terms of styling, I feel like that's another really important piece of photography that people don't often talk about. Is there anything that You've learned about styling that has been helpful in regards to capturing a photo in the way that you want it to look like?

Definitely. I mean, the photography school has taught me a lot of basics that I kind of seen on, on some, some of the images, but I didn't know how to, you know, name it. Such as, such as layering technique or just composition techniques in, in general and stuff. So yeah, the course has taught me a lot. So once you start kind of using those bits that you learn, you'll just, at, at one point you'll, you'll stop thinking about it and you just do you, you'll just not naturally know. I want to create a curve or I want to make some like layers to create some of the dimension in the, in the, in the image and stuff.

Yeah, it's almost like house building where like I could go and look at a wall that's been framed up and I could see like, okay, I understand that to be a two by four, I understand that to be a nail, like I understand, you know, Sheetrock. But then what it takes is like somebody explaining it and saying like, here's actually how you assemble that, here's some tips on how to do that. Well, and then you can take it and say, great, I'm going to like do it exactly. Like you've done it a few times. But once you get good enough, you can start to say, okay, I know best practices. Here's what I'm going to do that's a little bit creative. Like I'm going to do, you know, create a little corner here that's unique in terms of how the drywall goes on or whatever it might be. I don't actually have any, any clue how to build a house, but it feels like that's one of the things that, to your point, naming something does, is it allows you to understand what the tool is. And then for you as a creator, you have that in your kind of tool belt that then you can refer to and go back to.

I love that. Yeah.

And I think a lot of times as, yeah, as creators we, that's one of the primary benefits we get from watching other people do their skill is to see like, oh, here's how you assemble that, here's how you create that. What do you think in, in terms of the, the, the start to finish process? What do you think are the most important tools for you as a photographer? My guess is lightroom. Are there other things that you use that are, whether it be a gadget or you know, software that you use that help you with your photography?

Well, since I started shooting my book, so like about a year ago, I really ventured into tethering. By that point, I was just, you know, shooting blind or just like on the small LCD screen.

Sure.

But. But yeah, I think seeing my scene on a big screen definitely helps because instead of just clicking that shutter like a hundred times, you just need to click it like two to three times because, you know, this is what I need my scene to look like. So I use actually Capture One for the tethering because I shoot with a Nikon or as would in the usa, Nikon.

Sure.

So their software is not very good. So I do use a Capture One, which also has the ability to edit images like Lightroom. So, yeah, I would say, like, in the past year, tethering has really helped improve my composition, my choice of colors and stuff, because I could see what I was creating. And I also started just thinking it more through.

Sure. So Capture one is a tethering software. So you run that on your computer and then can you talk through, like, the actual. This will be you tapping into your IT previous life, your IT work. But can you talk through, like, actually how that all works and then, like, what screen are you using?

So the Capture One, I think, is primarily photo editing app, just like Lightroom, but it has that ability to connect your camera via HDMI or whatever cable you have. So you can connect your camera directly to your computer and then you just enter, you know, Capture One, and then the application should recognize your camera and then you should just hit like Live View. There's like a little button and they just, you know, suddenly your computer screen is showing your camera's LCD screen.

Got it.

And then. Yeah, sorry. Then you can also change the ISO, the shutter speed, and the aperture directly on your computer on that app. So you basically don't need to use your camera. It just serves you to show the image on the. On the computer.

Yeah, it's almost like then the back of the camera becomes this huge screen and you're able to kind of control and manipulate that. Are you shooting off of a tripod usually as well?

For that? Yeah, for that I'm using actually a C stand when I do like a flat lace. So, yeah, I will actually mostly use tethering when I do flat lighting flatlies. But actually when I did my cover image of my book, I did shoot on a tripod and that because I really wanted to capture the smoke and candles. And I. And I took like 15 images or so with. With that. Yeah.

Yeah. So speaking of, your book's coming out soon.

Oh, yeah.

Can you talk about one thing that you learned in the process of doing a cookbook? What was your takeaway? We kind of touched on that a little bit, but this will be kind of, as we wrap up here, another touch point. Is that something you would do again? Was it harder than you thought, easier than you thought? What was the process look like? And how did you manage doing that and keeping your blog up?

Well, to answer your last question, I didn't really managed to do that and keep my blog alive. I mean, that, that just, that is just how it worked for me. I know that some people maybe have, like, better. They, they just better manage their time or. I don't know. For me, I feel like I underestimated it a bit. The whole book process thing. Or I just thought that I would be like, quicker, you know, but I just, I just couldn't be because my book is. Half of them is like layer cakes. And you do need quite a bit of time to make a layer cake, you know, just, just for it to chill, to make the buttercream, to see if I, you know, decorated it in the, in the, in the right way and not, not to mention the, all the, like, testing.

Yeah.

Prior to the, like a final verdict. But I'm. Even so. Even if it was a bit, like, hard, I'm really, really grateful for that opportunity because I've seen firsthand how to work with a publisher, how the deadlines work, how to work with a designer team, how to create a cover.

All.

These small little processes that you, that you just pick up on. And I also learned how to write better recipes, better recipes instructions, which will be beneficial for my blog.

How do you. What's an example of that? How did you change in terms of the recipe writing from start to finish?

I mean, I didn't change. I was always trying to be very descriptive and very detailed. But for one, I learned that when you write your ingredients like, you know, in the bowl, put the flour, that you should always mention the, like, you need that article. You shouldn't like, just write, put flour. Put the flour, put the baking powder and stuff. Yeah. So I just maybe picked up some of the expressions because I'm good with like, basic ones. But when I tried to explain some decorating techniques, then my editor really came in handy because she knew how to, how to translate better. What I really wanted to say and explain.

Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, I think there's, in our conversation, there's kind of Two ways of education. One is the previous way you described, which is information gathering, like learning how to shoot manual before you get your camera. It's really gathering as much information as possible and then moving forward. And the other one is you probably never would have been fully prepared to the point where you would have said, okay, I have everything I need to write a cookbook, so you just do it. And a lot of the learning comes from doing it, moving into it.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah.

And I've seen that, you know, I can think of countless ways where over the last five, 10 years, that's been true for us as well. How do you do a podcast? Well, you just kind of start and like you put the pieces together as you do it. Or how do you hire somebody to be a part of your team? Well, you kind of say, like, what do I need to figure out next in order to move this along? You figure out that little thing and you keep moving forward with it. And I think that's inspiring to hear you really to do both of those things when you can, to think, to prepare, to research, but then also to say, like, you know what, I'm just going to dive in and in this process of doing it, I'll learn a lot from it. Which it seems like was the case. So when does it come out? How can people buy it and want to make sure that you get a chance to give it a shout out? And then what is the name?

Thanks. So the name is actually a game on my blog name. So it's the Cake Chronicles and it should come out November 30th in North America. And for the rest of the world, there will probably be a small delay due to the shipping time and just the pandemic operations, logistics, current global events. That's what I call it. But yeah, I just. So far, so good. Everything is going according to plan. I'm also finished with like a small bonus ebook for all the. All the pre orders. I'm also. I'm just waiting for my editor to just confirm it. So I just, I really wanted to give some extra to the people who support me. And yeah, you can buy it on Amazon. I actually have a whole page that dedicated it on my blog with all the links and information on how to. How to buy it.

That's cool. We'll link to that in the show notes. And a big congratulations to being on the side of it.

I'm sure it's fun to be talking.

About it as opposed to just working on it, so.

Definitely, yeah, this is like the fun part.

I don't know. If people want to follow along with what you're up to, where's the best place to find you?

Yeah, currently on my Instagram, you can find me at Anna's Baking Chronicles or my blog, Anas baking chronicles.com but you can always also shoot me an email. I'm pretty good at replying, I think. So. So, yeah.

Awesome. Hey, thanks so much for coming on sharing your story. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me. I really, I really had a nice time. Thank you.

That's a wrap for this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. As a reminder, just go ahead and hit subscribe or follow if you haven't already in your podcast app of choice, Spotify the Apple podcast app. Or you could just go to foodbloggerpro.com podcast we will always put up the episodes there and some people like to actually just read through them. So we have the show notes accompanying every podcast episode and that also includes the transcript. So if you just like to sit and read as opposed to listen, you can do that as well. And we have that available on foodbloggerpro.com podcast as well as lots of other elements. So go ahead and explore. Dive in there. The Food Blogger Pro team does an incredible job rounding up all the different places that we are around the web, putting it in one spot and, and making that available to you. And that's foodbuggerpro.com thanks so much for tuning in. Our hope with this is that we can help you get a tiny bit better every day forever. That's why we exist and that's why we show up here each and every week. We will be back here next Tuesday. See you then.

Sam.