About

At 28, I landed a winter assignment in Prague that lasted a few months. Instead of the usual hotel setup, I was placed in a small furnished apartment—with a real kitchen. I remember standing there, noticing the stove, a couple of well-used pans, and a tiny table near the window, and realizing how long it had been since I’d cooked something start-to-finish.

The first days I did what I always did: ate out, picked up pastries, and pieced together “meals” from grocery store snacks. But Prague in winter is quiet and dark early, and after hours outside with cold hands and a heavy camera bag, restaurants felt like too much. I wanted warmth, silence, and something that felt like my own.

One night, I made a simple pasta—garlic, butter, a little cheese, and whatever I had on hand. I ate it at that small table, looking out at the streetlights, and it surprised me how calming it felt.

For the first time in a long time, I felt grounded.

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The Unexpected Anchor

After that, cooking became my routine in Prague. I’d finish a shoot, stop by a market, and cook dinner at home. Nothing complicated—roasted vegetables, cozy soups, rice bowls, quick breakfasts. I started photographing the food too, almost automatically, the same way I documented city scenes: step by step, light by light, moment by moment.

In a life built around temporary schedules and constant movement, cooking became the one thing that gave me stability. It made each new place feel less like a stopover and more like a space I could live in, even briefly.

When that assignment ended, I didn’t want to lose that feeling. I began choosing rentals with kitchens whenever I could. I’d try local ingredients in each city and attempt regional flavors with a mix of curiosity, mistakes, and help from market vendors who always had an opinion (and usually the right one).

My Instagram slowly shifted too. Food photos started showing up among the travel posts, and people reacted in a new way—more messages, more questions, more “Can you share how you made this?” moments. That interaction stuck with me.

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Everything Changed With Ely

At 29, my life changed quickly in the best way: I fell in love, and not long after, I found out I was pregnant. When my son Ely arrived two years ago, freelance travel photography became much harder to sustain. I couldn’t take long assignments or disappear for weeks at a time with a baby at home.

Suddenly, I was home—fully and completely—in a way I hadn’t been for years.

The early months of motherhood were beautiful, but also messy and disorienting. I missed the version of myself who felt capable and independent, the one who could navigate any city with a camera and a plan. Some days, I felt like I’d lost my rhythm.

Cooking gave it back to me.

When so much felt unpredictable, I could still make dinner. During naps and quiet evenings, I started testing recipes the way I used to plan shoots—repeatable steps, small adjustments, paying attention to what worked and what didn’t. My photography skills finally had a place to land, right in my own kitchen.

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Building Recipes By Lea

I launched Recipes By Lea eight months ago as a way to build something new—something creative, practical, and real—while I figured out what this next chapter of my career looks like.

Recipes By Lea is where travel-inspired flavor meets everyday cooking. Everything you see is tested in my actual kitchen, with real-life time limits and a toddler in the background. If a recipe is too fussy, too long, or too dependent on “perfect timing,” I rework it until it fits real life.

I shoot all the photos myself, style the dishes with a photographer’s eye, and write each recipe with clear, usable steps—because confidence in the kitchen comes from knowing what things should look like along the way.

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My Background & Approach

I have seven years of professional photography experience, focused on travel and architecture for editorial-style work. I’m also entirely self-taught in the kitchen—learning through trial, error, and a lot of “let’s try it again tomorrow.”

My approach is equal parts visual and practical: I care about how a dish looks at every stage, but I care even more about whether it actually works on a normal weeknight. I develop recipes in the pockets of time I really have, which means the final version has to be straightforward, flexible, and reliable.

This isn’t aspirational perfection. It’s cooking that holds up in real life.

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What I Believe

Cooking can be an anchor when everything else feels uncertain. It was for me while traveling, and it still is now.

You don’t need to book a flight to explore global flavors. With the right recipe and a little curiosity, your kitchen is enough.

Good food photography should make cooking feel easier—not intimidating. Seeing the process clearly helps you trust yourself.

Parenthood doesn’t mean losing who you were before. It means reshaping what you love so it fits the life you have now.

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Let’s Cook Together

Whether you’re a busy parent cooking with limited time, someone who loves travel-inspired food, a photographer curious about food styling, or just looking for dependable recipes with great visuals—you’re in the right place.

Let’s Connect:

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Thank you for being here.

— Lea