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  Plate to Pixel: Digital Food Photography & Styling

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  Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  ISBN: 978-0-470-9321-31

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  About the Author

  Hélène Dujardin moved from France to the US in the late 90s with a Masters in History, a suitcase and an old film camera. Soon after, she decided to follow her first passion, food, and so began honing her skills in various dining establishments. She became the pastry chef at a French restaurant and she stayed there for five years. Yet photography was never very far from her heart. Hélène started taking pictures of food for the restaurant staff to help them recreate her desserts when she was not on duty. On her days off, she often walked around town, photographing the beauty of common things.

  Upon leaving her pastry position in 2006, Hélène launched the award-winning blog Tartelette, where she dedicates herself to the art of food, photography, and styling. It didn’t take long for photography to become more than a hobby. Hélène progressed quickly from enthusiast food photographer to professionally working with local and national magazines. She also began photographing and styling numerous cookbooks.

  Hélène’s food photography and styling work has been praised online and in print by publications such as Elle magazine, Forbes magazine, The Times Online, Saveur magazine, CNN, Martha Stewart and more.

  Her photographs reveal her passion for natural light, seasonal and fresh ingredients, a love of travel and genuine interest in people. Hélène currently lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with her husband and their two rescue dogs.

  Photo by Diane Cu

  Credits

  Acquisitions Editor

  Courtney Allen

  Project Editor

  Jenny Larner Brown

  Technical Editor

  David Verdini

  Copy Editor

  Jenny Larner Brown

  Editorial Director

  Robyn Siesky

  Business Manager

  Amy Knies

  Senior Marketing Manager

  Sandy Smith

  Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

  Richard Swadley

  Vice President and Executive Publisher

  Barry Pruett

  Book Designer

  Erik Powers

  Media Development Project Manager

  Laura Moss

  Media Development Assistant Project Manager

  Jenny Swisher

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, I would like to thank my husband, William, for holding me through this process. Words fall short to convey how lucky I am for his guidance whenever I got lost.

  Thank you to my parents, Monique and Jacques, for being just the greatest parents in the world. I am forever thankful for their gift of encouraging me to seek beauty all around.

  I would like to thank my brother Arnaud and his wife, Stephanie, for their constant enthusiasm and positive attitude. I will never forget my niece Lea channeling her aunty during the summer of 2010, when she took pictures of foods we cooked together. I hope to read this book with her and her sister Camille soon.

  To my grandfather, Papi René: I know, I know… I told you I’d open my own bakery by age 35. I wrote a book instead. I hope you’re okay with that!

  Thank you, Mamie Paulette for giving me this passion I have for food, making it well and sharing it with others, either around our table or through my photographs.

  Thank you, mama Ruth and papa Bill for always making this life my home. Your support and love know no boundaries.

  Taylor, your genuine friendship and love of photography are gifts indeed. Thank you for all your help and enthusiasm.

  Anita, Jen, Jeanne … my three muskeeters: thank you for your amazing support, care and sass. You guys are just the best. Move closer!

  Thank you, Matt Amendariz and Lara Ferroni. Your genuine advice, constant kindness and open heart are gifts to the photography community.

  Carrie and Tami, your capacity for humor, authenticity and courage has been great motivation throughout this project.

  Thank you, Courtney Allen for giving me the opportunity to write this book and show others the fantastic world of food photography and food styling.

  A special thank you to Jenny Larner Brown for editing my words as well as she did. I don’t know what was worse: the extra-long sentences or the French coming through at times.

  Thank you David Verdini for making sure I crossed all my Ts and dotted all my Is regarding technical terms and concepts. I enjoyed learning new things at the same time.

  And thank you Erik Powers for the beautiful design of this book as well as the long hours spent working to lay out all the words and images so well.

  Thank you to all my friends and readers for their support and enthusiasm during this project.

  To my brother Thierry (1962-2000)

  He was, in my eyes, one of the most inspiring photographers out
there. He saw with his heart. His spirit never left my side the whole time I was writing this book.

  Introduction

  Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart.

  —Anonymous

  I know it sounds unusual, but I fell in love with food photography the way I fell for my husband, the one true love of my life. It was completely unexpected, gorgeous, unsettling. It moved me and scared me. It made me curious and brave. It left me hungry to learn more.

  I was a senior in high school on a fabulous two-week excursion through Greece. On the first morning, we did the obligatory visit of the market in Athens. And within minutes, my head was spinning from the buzz happening all around me. Vendors screaming, tourists pushing, bicycles and motorcycles zooming through crowds of pedestrians … and display after display of artifacts—and food! Oh, the food.

  Ingredients used in a recipe, such as the cocoa nibs and cocoa powder in these cookies, make the perfect natural props for a composition.

  f/3.5, ISO 400, 24-70mm L

  Everywhere I turned, there was color; there was smell; there was taste. Instead of letting myself go with the flow and join the excited agitation of my companions, I got overwhelmed. I took a step back … and a long, deep breath … and loaded my camera with black and white film. I know! Love at first sight is utterly crazy, isn’t it?

  I had never encountered food and color like this. It had never been presented to me this way. I went home and spent hours in the dark room looking at those black and white images. I had so much to learn, but I was completely hooked! I wanted to do it again. This time in color.

  For many years, I played around with photographing food but not very seriously. It was not the field I was studying at school, and there was little free time to practice. It took another ten years or so before food photography came knocking on my door, so to speak.

  That knock came when I was working as the Pastry Chef of a French restaurant. I was finding it increasingly difficult to get the night staff to plate the items I had carefully made … according to my instructions. I would write lengthy descriptions that no one would read. I even tried creating drawings to illustrate the look I envisioned. Admittedly, my drawings were pretty bad; any three-year-old would have laughed at them. But nothing was working.

  Then, one day, a light bulb went off in my head: A picture is worth a thousand words! I brought my Polaroid to work and started taking shots of each plated item to show the staff what I wanted from them.

  Backgrounds come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Here, a recycled green vintage ceiling tile enhances the yellows and blues of the other elements in the shot.

  f/4.5, ISO 500, 100mm, Macro L

  After a few years like this, I was convinced that Pastry Chef was my calling, and I decided to make myself a little portfolio to show potential employers what I could do with some dough. Within a few hours of taking pictures of my desserts, I was already aware of a realization that was making me grin from ear to ear.

  It was not the ten pounds of chocolate I had just tempered or the perfectly shaped sugar cages coming out of my kitchen. Rather, it was the way I was translating these pastries with images. I was manipulating the light around me to put that perfect shine on my chocolate. I was managing to tie together all that mise-en-place by adding a little sprinkle of powdered sugar to the top of my almond croissant. Ah-ha! Epiphany!

  I can’t say that the rest is history; but from that point on, everything I did led me a step or two closer to what I am doing now—whether I was aware of it at the time or not. That day truly felt like Christmas morning. Years later, my photography work still gives me that same feeling.

  And I remember distinctly the day I told my husband I was going to start a food blog—what I referred at the time as an online recipe journal. I created the front page, put a recipe up and posted a little story with it. I turned to him and said, “I need a camera to take a picture … to show people the final dish.” The next day he handed me an entry-level camera and told me to have at it.

  Make use of light and shadows as well as complementary colors, such as blues and oranges, as natural composition tools.

  f/3.5, ISO 640, 100mm, Macro L

  I was a bit disappointed. Okay… I was very disappointed. I wanted the nice camera with the lenses and the cool gear. But I knew he was doing me right, and his choice was largely due to the fact that I picked up and dropped a new hobby every year or so. Little did either of us know at the time that food photography would become my career. What he did know was that without photography fundamentals, I’d get nowhere … no matter what kind of camera I had.

  Now that I work as full-time food and lifestyle photographer, I still marvel at what I am able to achieve and learn. I work every day. Even when I don’t have an assignment, I practice … every day.

  You may have an ultimate desire to make a career of food photography; or perhaps you just want to take a good food shot for your blog or article, master a challenging new subject for your photography portfolio, or check out the “food photography thing.” It doesn’t matter. Learning, practicing—or what I really want to dub playing!—to get great images that make your mouth water will be much more rewarding when you take control of all the photographic elements that get you there.

  Let’s use an analogy. Unless a prodigy, you can’t expect to pick up a violin and play a melodic rendition of Beethoven Sonata No.9 without first learning music. And even when you learn how to read music and play a violin, you may never actually play Beethoven; but at least you will know the fundamentals that enable you to play jazz, rock, funk, whatever. You will be in charge of your artistic decisions.

  Photography is similar. Knowing some basic photographic principles allows you to access a world of light and artistic interpretation … to play with and enjoy, modify and create—in a way that matters to you and your audience.

  The information in this book is meant to help you create a process for photographing food that begins long before your assignment and extends beyond the click of your shutter button. There are guidelines for creating beautiful photographs, but your particular process will be driven by your individual personality, equipment, style and budget … and it will help you convey the messages and evoke the feelings you envision for your pictures.

  The more you know and learn about your camera, light, composition and styling, the more capable you’ll be to get the most out of your camera gear and photography work. Your recipes are important to you and your family. Let your photography capture that spirit. Learn, play, enjoy the process!

  Chapter One: Photography Basics

  Photography is the method of recording the image of an object through the action of light, or related radiation, on a light-sensitive material. The word is derived from the Greek word photos (which means light) and graphein (which means, to draw).

  —Encyclopedia Britannica

  To draw with light …

  Without light, we can’t see. Nor can we create a scene or make a picture. Light is everything to photography.

  Yet what I love most about photography is that an individual image is the result of so many different considerations, decisions and factors. Aside from the lighting, there are decisions on what kind of camera to use, camera settings and modes, composition techniques and even photo-editing options. Every one of these elements affect the story you tell with your images.

  So learn and practice the basic techniques of photography; experiment and explore different combinations of elements; erase if you must; and do it again. You’ll find that your technique becomes second nature and the images you create get better and better. And the most wonderful part of all is that there’re always more aspects to discover and explore. The possibilities are truly endless.

  Use light and shadows to

  capture the mood of tea time

  during a rainy afternoon.

  f/3.5, ISO 400, 100mm, Macro L

  Light is Every
thing

  At a workshop this past summer, a budding food photographer candidly asked me why every photographer she’d met talks about light so much. My mind started jumping in all different directions. I was so excited to show her why. But I didn’t want to freak her out, so I contained my excitement and calmly gave her the very definition of photography that’s printed at the start of this chapter. And then we talked about how viewers typically respond to a photograph of food.

  As expected, the first thing people usually say about a food photograph is something about the dish. And the second thing they tend to notice—consciously or not—is how the light hits a certain part of the dish … or doesn’t. Light and shadows, too much or too little, will make a viewer like or dislike a photograph as much as the food it presents.

  Assessing light and figuring out how to use it in food photography is very much like courtship and the pursuit of capturing someone’s heart. To find the right light, you must observe, explore and discover. The beauty of digital photography is that you can erase and start over. It’s never a waste of time, but rather a learning experience—much like dating … except, of course, the erasing part.

  Whether your ambient light comes naturally or from artificial sources, there are many ways you can capture and apply it. Several key points come into play, including where to find quality light, how to direct it for your purpose, and how to incorporate shadows and high key (very bright) notes. (See the Glossary for the definition of specific terms used throughout this book.)

  The elements of lighting and how your camera settings and modes work with your lighting circumstances are covered in Chapter 3 (Natural Light Photography) and Chapter 4 (Artificial Light Photography). And please, refer to Chapter 2 (Camera Settings and Modes) as we explore other photography elements. Everything works together to create your photographs.