When Derek Bissonnette was 16 he landed his first kitchen gig, at a bakery in Searsport, Maine. He went on to study baking and pastry at the Culinary Institute of America, graduating in 2000. He was hired as the pastry chef at the estimable White Barn Inn in Kennebunk, Maine, jumped to the renowned Inn at Little Washington in rural Virginia, and then joined the kitchen at the elegant English countryside hotel, The Summer Lodge Country House Hotel and Spa. In 2009, he returned to Maine and the White Barn, where he was promoted to executive chef in 2015. After Bissonnette took over the White Barn kitchen, he started toting a camera to work to create a visual record of dishes he and his staff came up with. Photography clicked with him, and in 2017, he gave up his apron to pursue photography full time. He is the author of Soup: The Ultimate Cookbook and Dumplings. Find out more at dbfoodphoto.

com .