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We’re guilty. You probably are, too, if you’re a regular reader of this blog. Owning a smartphone and liking food undoubtedly means you’ve posted at least one picture of a dish to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Maybe you even have your own food blog showcasing the end result of your hard work in the kitchen. If your food picture Tweets or Facebook posts elicit few retweets or likes, it’s possible that your pictures are bad, the food unappetizing. It’s also possible that your friends have grown weary of your food chronicles. The rise of foodie-ism combined with the ease of documenting experiences through digital photography plus the instant accessibility of sharing those experiences via social media have us wondering—what are the effects of this trend, good and bad?
In the best case scenario, a great food shot from a restaurant is free advertising: a friend posts a picture of the fabulous mango dessert (right) she ate last night at Restaurant X, and several of her Twitter followers make reservations. For many, pictures offer an immediate visual impact that supersedes even the best writing, and food pictures, in particular, can persuade someone who just ate into thinking he’s hungry.
Tips for how to take the best food pictures abound on the Internet (using natural light rather than a flash may just transform your pictures). Recently, Bon Appétit ran an article in which the author—a professional photographer—tested seven “affordable” cameras best suited to recording food. Affordable is a relative term, apparently, because several of the cameras cost over $1000. Offering advice along the way, the author names the Lumix GF3 ($479, below left) the winner, but recommends the iPhone 4S for overall convenience. With that iPhone, one can then download Platter, Dishpal, Foodspotting, or Snapdish, which join Instagram as the “five best food photo apps” in an ABC news report.
Lumix also makes a camera with a food mode, so it’s no surprise that the brand was highlighted in the above article. According to the product detail of the Lumix TZ10 (above right), the food mode “assures that colors are fresh, vivid, and natural.” (FYI: the same camera boasts a “soft skin mode” that promises to make wrinkles less noticeable.) A quick search on the net revealed a smattering of photography classes specifically for shooting food. Camera manufacturers, then, appear to be savvy to the increased demand by customers who find cameras as indispensable as forks at the dinner table.
Not only are there now food modes and photography classes aimed at documenting food—what one might call the positive or at least benign effects of the trend—but there is plenty of backlash as well. The regular McSweeney’s column in which people write letters to others who will never respond brilliantly skewers the topic in “An Open Letter to People Who Takes Pictures of Food with Instagram.”
One of the best lines from the letter reads: “You proceed to take various angled shots of the avocado being sliced, the blueberries getting washed, and your bearded boyfriend plucking feathers from the partridges because the Farmer’s Market only sold them with feathers, because plucking out the feathers themselves would be too mean and they’re the nice kind of farmers who kill with love.” Mocking not only the act of taking food pictures, the author also pokes fun at the glorification of farmers’ markets, farmers themselves, and hirsute hipsters.
It seems that mocking hipsters may be almost as popular as taking food pictures. Put the two together and the result is this Tumblr chronicling hipsters taking pictures of food, with tattoos, piercings, and facial hair aplenty. Similar Tumblrs of people shooting their food exist, although they were deemed too offensive for this article.
In the last week alone, both The New York Times and The Telegraph published articles on this very topic. In “Restaurants Turn Camera Shy,” Helene Stapinski writes about the ubiquitous trend of flash photography in restaurants and how chef-owners manage the trend’s attendant problems. David Chang, chef-owner of the momofuku empire, and Moe Issa, owner of Brooklyn Fare, have strict no-photography rules, according to Stapinski. David Bouley, on the other hand, invites diners back to the kitchen to take their photographs there, a gesture that placates all patrons—those wielding cameras and those trying to enjoy their food.
Bonjwing Lee (right), a popular food blogger who’s familiar with the St. Louis dining scene (he’s friends with Gerard Craft and covered the bluestem cookbook dinner last year at Niche), writing under the moniker “The Ulterior Epicure,” claims that he chooses not to dine at restaurants with no-camera policies, singling out momofuku ko and Brooklyn Fare. In an entry dating back to 2008, Lee justifies his use of cameras in restaurants, describing how he shoots food as discreetly as possible. Arguing that a flash-less shot of food remains much less obtrusive than the loud, drunk patron dining nearby, Lee has a point.
Since Facebook remains one of the primary sites for food-picture posting, the “Stop Taking Pictures of Your Food—Just Eat it” page seems only natural. The backlash points to the fact that even if food pictures are good, they can often cast the photographer-poster in a negative light, as a braggart. In a recent Boston Magazine article, for example, Jolyon Helterman addresses the larger problem of “foodie” hype, comprised of “posturing” and “plugging,” that goes well beyond simply taking pictures. According to Helterman,
“Underlying all the dining hype is a modern-era anxiety that social scientists have termed ‘fear of missing out.’ Bombarded with tweets and updates and snapshots of our peers seemingly living the good life, we panic about our own shlumpy existence. So we slavishly follow the buzz, loading up our dance card with venues and cocktails and buttery morsels bearing the crowd-vetted stamp of approval. Which we then, in turn, broadcast to our own followers, sealed with a jaunty exclamation point.”
The problem seems to be about more than posting bad pictures in which food looks like “dried dog poop in a serving tray” or bothering one’s fellow diners as the flash on the camera pops in a dark restaurant. The growing trend of documenting food experiences through photography and social media has the potential to undermine the very food we set out to highlight in the first place. So the next time you’re tempted to post a shot of that pasta dish you’re enjoying at the latest hot spot, consider that you just may be contributing to foodie fatigue . . . and may find yourself mocked on someone’s clever Tumblr.
Editor's note: to illustrate her personal dilemma with food photography, Jenny Agnew, the author of this piece, submitted a photo she took of a 2-minute "mug" cake, "which looks horrible but was absolutely delicious." Stick to words, Jenny, stick to words.
