The Parisian sun casting a warm glow on a balcony overlooking narrow streets, laundry drying overhead. The bustle of a market. Sprawling Provençal vineyards.

Julia Child’s time in France inspired her to capture the country through its cuisine, introducing French cooking to kitchens around the world. But it was that same French magic — and Ms. Child herself — that inspired her husband, Paul, to also capture the country, albeit through a different medium, photography. A new book lets him offer a personal glimpse into the world beyond the kitchen.

“There is this combination of intimacy and formal, rigorous design,” said Alex Prud’homme, the couple’s grandnephew and a co-author of “France Is a Feast: The Photographic Journey of Paul and Julia Child.”

The Childs met while serving in the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, leading them to various postings around Europe. But it was Paris, where they arrived in 1948, that captured their hearts.

“Apart from our official lives — cooking and government — the other things we do fall into fairly repetitive categories whose two main divisions are, being entertained and entertaining others,” Mr. Child wrote to his twin brother, Charlie. “Sometimes when we’re being entertained it isn’t people, but just Paris herself who acts as hostess.”

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While Ms. Child took French cooking classes, and eventually began work on “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” with Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, Mr. Child was engaged in diplomatic duties as a cultural attaché for the United States government. And he was rarely without a camera.

The photographs, taken between 1948 and 1954, focus on the beauty of postwar France. The perfectly-landscaped parks, the bustling waterfront in Marseille, the glow of Place de la Concorde at night, a cold fog settling over the Sacré-Coeur basilica. The shadow play on the grand entryways and the underpasses along the Seine.

But Mr. Child’s main subject was always his wife. Ms. Child in the kitchen; changing her clothes on the side of the road; legs propped up in a telephone booth; sunbathing in Cassis.

“This is Julia before she became ‘Julia Child,’” Mr. Prud’homme said.

The detail and expansive catalog of Mr. Child’s work raise the question: Did he have a sense that their lives would have a bigger impact than their immediate Parisian universe?

“He was an obsessive photographer and note taker, it’s almost like he knew back then that their lives were worth preserving for posterity,” Mr. Prud’homme said. “It’s like they were leaving breadcrumbs.”

Mr. Prud’homme helped Ms. Child write her memoir, “My Life in France” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), but he felt it wasn’t complete. That’s when Katie Pratt, a longtime family friend of the Childs and the book’s co-author, discovered a “Pandora’s box” of hundreds of black and white and color photographs, everything from surrealistic street documentary to formal portraits and landscapes.

Negatives were clearly labeled. Log books and letters provided a time frame, and were often accompanied by long letters detailing their routine: embassy comings and goings during the Cold War, their meals, the price of wine or the performance they saw the evening before. Everything was for the taking.

Mr. Child had a “distinct style,” Ms. Pratt said.

“His style as a visual artist, whether it was photography or other mediums, it was very important for him to have strong, well-organized, well-balanced compositions, often with perspective and depth,” she said. “There’s often a story going on.”

Mr. Child’s style was heavily influenced by artists living in France at the time. And as a cultural attaché, he quickly gravitated to the top artists of the day: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and Edward Steichen were all friends of his. They even shared the same printer, using Pictorial Service owned by Pierre Gassmann in Paris.

“My interpretation was that Paul was a very independent-minded guy who really developed his own aesthetic, but he was swimming in the waters of these masters of 20th-century photography,” Mr. Prud’homme said.

Mr. Child continued his diplomatic service until 1961, just as Ms. Child’s cooking career in America began to take off. But he always remained behind the camera.

“Paul and Julia, in their own ways, were really good teachers,” Ms. Pratt said. “They really cared about not only perfecting their craft and communicating it clearly with others. They put it to operational proof and shared it with others.”

“That’s something they learned while in the O.S.S.,” Mr. Prud’homme said. “Don’t trust common wisdom, find out for yourself whether something works or doesn’t. That’s something they both did in their art, and cooking.”

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