Lauren V. Allen Helps Little Sous Teach Kids How to Cook

You ever learn about something and go ‘man, I wish that was around when I was a kid’? That’s how this writer felt after hearing about Little Sous, a website that puts together and compiles recipes of delicious, colorful dishes for kids. Durham, North Carolina-based photographer Lauren V. Allen has been working with this client for a few years now and appreciates the fact that they’re trying to help children learn a valuable life skill in a fun, easy way.    

I was excited about the mission of Little Sous when I first heard of it. Not often do kids, let alone adults, learn how to cook with a focus on using technique and kitchen skills. Sure, kids learn how to follow a recipe, but here they’re given the ability to be creative and use their skills and techniques to yield a tasty dish! I was not a fan of cooking as a kid besides what snack I could concoct in my EZ Bake Oven, so this blew my mind. 

When it comes to my work with them, it’s about making the recipes feel approachable to kids through photography because if something looks too hard to make, why would they try?

The above sentiment partly informs the company’s M.O. as it strives to make cooking — an intimidating thing for people of any age — an enjoyable exercise. Little Sous has several initiatives towards cooking education, but one is having kids sign up for a monthly subscription box. The box includes cooking lessons, recipes, and activity cards for the kids to use. Lauren’s imagery features prominently in the boxes — look through the recipes and meals that Lauren has helped bring to life, and you’ll notice a nice mix of classic dishes, healthy options, and scrumptious desserts.

I’ve been working with Little Sous monthly for about two years now. Each shoot takes about one day with a half-day of prep. The toughest things to shoot are soups and anything with melty cheese.

For soups, I’m always trying to find ways to shoot them differently and also show the components. With melty cheese, once it’s not melty, it looks gross, so you just have to work quick! 

Since this is a food-based job, Lauren’s workflow hasn’t been too stifled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her home studio provides the kind of setup that allows her to cover any request all by herself.

I love working in my home studio. I’m easily able to switch between lighting setups, surfaces, and props. I can ensure a wide range of imagery through different lighting and styling techniques, both in terms of food and props.

Most of my clients have always been remote and with new clients, we’ve done test shoots to see if I’m producing the imagery we want with a team of one in a home studio before moving on to larger projects. Being able to tether with Capture One Pro and then display photos to clients in real time is a very helpful tool these days!

One takeaway for Lauren regarding this works is the enjoyment she gets out of wearing multiple hats. In this instance, she’s styling and shooting, thereby expanding an already well-rounded skillset.

I love how styling and shooting works two separate parts of my brain. I like to think that I can direct stylists well, but it’s really nice to just get your hands dirty and style items yourself. However, there are skills in the kitchen and propping many stylists have that I do not — but I’m working on learning them! From working remotely, I’ve become a better stylist and have utilized more skills I’ve learned on the job from stylists and workshops. 

You’ll notice the images are bright and happy, an obvious aesthetic choice considering the target demographic is young kids. Lauren works closely with Molly Egan, an illustrator with whom she’s often on the same page (ahem) as it relates to which colors to use for a given dish.

Each color palette is based off a couple factors: brand colors, the theme of the box, and working with Molly. We collectively discuss the recipes and theme to determine the best colors over a handful of emails. It is a pretty quick process because we tend to always have the same colors in mind. 

And Lauren has received direct feedback from happy customers, some of whom even made the dish look exactly like what the Raleigh-based photographer produced in her imagery. A large number of these kids, no doubt, will take these important skills and continue to develop them as they get older.

Someone shared a photo with me one time of their chocolate cake they made from the chocolate-themed box. They were so proud of how it turned out and it was styled just as the photo on the recipe card.

It was a perfect affirmation that my styling approach to Little Sous — the idea of keeping the food playful, yet sophisticated and 100% makeable for children — worked.

Credits:

Illustrator: Molly Egan

Check out more of Lauren’s work at laurenvallen.com.

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