Book Review: "Plate to Pixel" by Helene Dujardin

"Plate to Pixel" by Helene Dujardin, sub-titled "Digital Food Photography & Styling" was put out by Wiley Publishing, Inc. in 2011. It is a 266 page soft-cover book. Printed on heavy stock, it contains many excellent color photographs to clearly illustrate the ideas and techniques in the text.

"Pixel to Plate" is a comprehensive book about food photography that should be helpful to anyone interested in this subject. Photography basics and camera settings are covered in the first two chapters for beginning photographers. The following six chapters cover natural and artificial lighting, composition ideas for food, set ups for shooting, food styling and post-capture editing, organization and storage.

This was the first food-specific book I read when I finally decided to jump into food photography and start a food blog. It was very helpful, giving me needed information on how to achieve the lighting to make various foods look great. There are also many good compositional ideas to use as starting points.

Overall, "Plate to Pixel" by Helene Dujardin is a very good place to start for beginning photographers wanting to improve their food photography and for more advanced photographers who want to expand their expertise in this area. At $29.99 US, this book is a treasure trove of inspiration.

Food Photography - Because We All Have To Eat

Bananas

I have made my living as a professional chef for more than thirty years but always kept photography separate, concentrating on nature, landscapes and wildlife, architecture, cars, almost anything except food. A few months ago I fully realized this gap in my subject matter and decided to do something about it. This realization came about because I was considering starting another blog about healthy eating.

The new blog would need photos. It did not make sense to me to try to source these photos elsewhere when I could do it myself and get exactly what I needed for each post. So I began a new photographic journey to teach myself food photography.

Following my usual path, I started reading books, doing on-line research, checking out existing food related blogs and studying the illustrating photos in the big food print magazines. My food shots gradually began to improve as I learned from outright mistakes and near misses. I do not yet feel I have developed a real personal style in food photography but am definitely making progress.

Here are a few of the results so far that I am happy with:

Vegetable Saute

Shiitake Mushrooms

Cinnamon Sticks

Roasted Coffee Beans

I will continue on this journey and continue to learn. The healthy food blog(ThinkEatBeHealthy) is now a reality and you can see more of my food photos there.