Written by: Sarah Jampel
Popular on Food52
5 Comments
702551
May 24, 2016
Oh, and photos of latte art? That screams three things: "This is the 7,361,935th photo of latte art. It looks pretty much the same as the other 7,361,934 photos. And yes, I am in *AMERICA*!"
Don't expect latte art in Paris or Vienna.
:-)
Don't expect latte art in Paris or Vienna.
:-)
702551
May 24, 2016
I stopped taking pictures at my farmers market a couple of years ago. Why? I realized I was taking the same pictures that I had taken about twelve months prior. I've printed a few as greeting cards, but let's face it, a bunch of pattypan squash look the same year after year.
I don't dine out much these days. I really don't need to take pictures of restaurant food. At any given restaurant visit, there are generally several people taking photos of the food, better ones might be on Instagram, Flickr, worse photos on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp (unless the person is a serious photographer). Plus, many of the restaurants here (SF Bay Area) have a substantial social media presence, so it's not like I'm lacking for imagery.
I cook a lot at home, so I still take the occasional food photo. The one thing that I find lacking even today in 2016 is the small number of images showing the process of making the food. This site is an prime example, almost all of the photos are taken of the final product, whereas in many cases, one or two photos of key steps says far more than the fourth view of the same slice of cake.
A few times, I have take photos of my mise en place place on a sheet of butcher paper and scrawled basic notes like "10 g. kosher/1 kg. ___" or "325 deg 20 min." and that's my "recipe."
For example, here's someone's photo of grilled shishito peppers:
https://flic.kr/p/7WZsiq
Sure, the final product looks nice.
Next, let's look at someone else's photo:
https://flic.kr/p/vTxPaw
Okay, they have used a metal skewer for the roasting. A little more information.
Finally, let's look at one more person's photo:
https://flic.kr/p/6pUXue
Aha! Here the person has used two skewers and wrapped part of them with foil to avoid charring the bamboo. Now if you've ever roasted shishitos like the previous photographer or made similar kabobs, well you'd know that the peppers tend to spin around on one skewer (and metal skewers are slippery anyhow). By using two bamboo skewers, you can prevent the peppers from spinning like a propellor.
This last photo is far more informational than the first shishito photo which only shows a dish of grilled peppers.
If you want a photo to tell a thousand words, you need to think about what photo to take.
A lot of people *still* don't get it. And it's not like the old days when you had to pay $8 for a 36-exposure roll of film and another $20 to have it developed and processed so there was a cost consideration. Today's photos are basically *FREE*, but a lot of food bloggers still don't know that there are other good and helpful food photos that aren't just a beauty shot of the final product.
I don't dine out much these days. I really don't need to take pictures of restaurant food. At any given restaurant visit, there are generally several people taking photos of the food, better ones might be on Instagram, Flickr, worse photos on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp (unless the person is a serious photographer). Plus, many of the restaurants here (SF Bay Area) have a substantial social media presence, so it's not like I'm lacking for imagery.
I cook a lot at home, so I still take the occasional food photo. The one thing that I find lacking even today in 2016 is the small number of images showing the process of making the food. This site is an prime example, almost all of the photos are taken of the final product, whereas in many cases, one or two photos of key steps says far more than the fourth view of the same slice of cake.
A few times, I have take photos of my mise en place place on a sheet of butcher paper and scrawled basic notes like "10 g. kosher/1 kg. ___" or "325 deg 20 min." and that's my "recipe."
For example, here's someone's photo of grilled shishito peppers:
https://flic.kr/p/7WZsiq
Sure, the final product looks nice.
Next, let's look at someone else's photo:
https://flic.kr/p/vTxPaw
Okay, they have used a metal skewer for the roasting. A little more information.
Finally, let's look at one more person's photo:
https://flic.kr/p/6pUXue
Aha! Here the person has used two skewers and wrapped part of them with foil to avoid charring the bamboo. Now if you've ever roasted shishitos like the previous photographer or made similar kabobs, well you'd know that the peppers tend to spin around on one skewer (and metal skewers are slippery anyhow). By using two bamboo skewers, you can prevent the peppers from spinning like a propellor.
This last photo is far more informational than the first shishito photo which only shows a dish of grilled peppers.
If you want a photo to tell a thousand words, you need to think about what photo to take.
A lot of people *still* don't get it. And it's not like the old days when you had to pay $8 for a 36-exposure roll of film and another $20 to have it developed and processed so there was a cost consideration. Today's photos are basically *FREE*, but a lot of food bloggers still don't know that there are other good and helpful food photos that aren't just a beauty shot of the final product.
cbforesman
May 24, 2016
The de rigueur scrap of artisanal linen draped across every single food blog photo - it just kills me every time. Make it stop.
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