Plate to Pixel
Southern California Food Photography & Video Production
Serving restaurants & culinary clients across Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego & Riverside.
Culinary Videos
Kitchen action, slow-motion plating, the pour and the pull, chef interviews and the room in full service — for restaurants and food brands across Orange County, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Food & Lifestyle Photography
Where culinary vision collides with visual mastery — a boutique creative agency for brands that want to stand out.
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I’m Alan De Herrera. I’ve been photographing food for twenty years, for restaurants, food brands and product catalogues of every size across Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego and Riverside.
National campaigns and single-location kitchens get the same lighting and the same attention. I light everything, work around live service, and shoot stills and vertical video in the same visit, so your menu, your website and your social all come out of one day. Flat rates start at $495 with unlimited images, delivered in three business days.
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I bring culinary stories to life through high-end video production and social media reels for restaurants and food brands — kitchen action, table-top beauty, food prep, lifestyle and interviews. Cinematic slow motion, precise motion control and clean interview set-ups that show the product and the people behind it, shot in the same visit as your stills.
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Some dishes need a food stylist and plenty of them don't. Ice cream, melting cheese, foam, pull shots and any hero plate that has to hold up for hours under lights are worth bringing one in for.
For most plated restaurant menus your own kitchen team can plate for camera with me directing, which costs you nothing extra. When a shoot does need a stylist I bring in one of the best in Southern California and quote it separately, so you only pay for styling on the dishes that actually need it.
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Before a shoot I work out what the pictures actually have to do — sell a menu, launch a product, carry a campaign — and build the day around that.
That means the surfaces, the backdrops, the linens and the props, the angle each dish is shot from, and the order we run the day so the food hits the camera at its best. I bring my own prop and surface collection, and for bigger campaigns I'll storyboard shot by shot so you know exactly what you're getting before anyone turns on a light.
Our Services
Bring Your Culinary Brand to Life
I’m Alan De Herrera. Plate to Pixel is my food photography and video studio, working with restaurants and food brands across Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and Riverside.
Campaigns for Coca-Cola, Disney, Universal, Tyson Foods, Bush’s Beans, Chipotle and Subway — and a great many independent restaurants who get exactly the same lighting and the same attention.
Hero-dish photography, chef and team portraits, styled tabletop shots, food-prep content and short-form social reels. I shoot stills and vertical video in the same visit, so your menu, your website and your social all come out of one day.
Looking for something specific? See my work as a restaurant photographer, as a food videographer for restaurant video production, as a commercial food photographer and as a cookbook photographer. Or find a food photographer in Los Angeles, Orange County or San Diego.
Good photography and cinematic video turn your dishes into something people can feel before they ever walk through the door.
Questions restaurants ask me
The things people want to know before they pick
up the phone. If yours is not here, ask.
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Flat rates start at $495 and include unlimited images from the shoot. Hourly options are available for shorter jobs, and I put together affordable packages for independent restaurants and cafes.
The pricing page breaks down what is included and what moves the number up or down.
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Within three business days of the shoot. That is my standard turnaround, not a rush fee.
If you are up against a menu print date or a launch, tell me the deadline and I will work to it.
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Sometimes. Ice cream, melting cheese, foam and any hero item that has to hold up for hours under lights really benefit from one. For most plated restaurant menus your own kitchen team can plate for camera with me directing, which costs you nothing extra. Styling is quoted separately, so you only pay for it when a dish needs it.
This is the single biggest difference between photos that look like the food and photos that look better than the food. A burger that has to hold up for hours under lights is a styling job before it is a photography job.
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No. You get every usable frame from the shoot. Per-image pricing makes everybody count shots on set and negotiate over the twelfth dish, which is the opposite of what you want while the food is hot.
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Everywhere, indefinitely. Menus, your website, delivery apps, social, print and paid advertising. There are no licensing tiers, no usage renewals and no expiry date.
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Yes, and it is the most cost-effective way to buy video. The lighting is already up and the food is already styled, so adding vertical reels to a stills day costs a fraction of booking a separate video shoot.
One visit can cover your menu, your website, your delivery listings and your social feed.
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Most restaurant work is a half day or a full day on location. I agree the scope with you first, so you know which one your menu needs before anything is booked.
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Yes, and often I would rather. Real plates coming out of a real kitchen look like it. It is slower than shooting a closed room, so I plan for that.
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Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego and the Inland Empire as standard, including Irvine, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Long Beach, Riverside, Corona, San Bernardino and Palm Springs.
Further afield is possible, it just adds travel.