History of Photography Fall 2019

I believe that we have become obsessed with food and taking pictures of it, especially with the release of Instagram. we have craved the  “perfect picture” of our plates and searched for most “instagrammable”  food. Personally I realize at one point I was capturing my life a lot on social media, many people don’t which is why some post food.  Although it has it has helped promote business since we do eat with our eyes before we eat with our mouths.  Ithink it makes us add another unnecessary thing that the world needs to know about us and also to life. It’s like a statement of class on what we eat, how much we spend on it, or how cool we are by the interactive things are food can do. Another way for us to categorize ourselves 

Being in the Hospitality Program at City Tech has really put my phone camera to use.

My First Turkey Thanksgiving Dinner

Currently taking a baking lab class has made me take dessert pictures to keep the amazing ideas of platings and delicious desserts in my photo album. I believe food photography in social media is amazing. Everyone gets to see the art of food and the art of plating, plating requieres skills and skills comes from being creative. This thanksgiving was the first time my family and I had turkey!

My opinion on food photography on Instagram is that it’s such a great idea, especially for the restaurant owners. With a simple click, a picture of a very interesting dish may go viral and attract more people to the restaurants simply for the way that the dish looks. However many people tend to go to specific restaurants or cafes because of the way that the food is photographed. This leads to the photograph to be misleading for the consumers bc the photograph says nothing about taste.

This Thanksgiving, alongside the traditional turkey, my family and I enjoyed pork and pasta salad. I focused more on the salad in this photograph because I made it myself, I was very proud of it. We had many Peruvian deserts as well but they, unfortunately, did not fit on the table. Modern food photography is something I enjoy seeing on social media outlets such as Instagram. It gives me ideas of what I should eat out with my friends, but it also makes me super hungry so I guess I have a love-hate relationship with it. Making money off of it sounds pretty cool as well.

Unfortunately this year I did not get to have a Thanksgiving dinner due to having to work that day, however I instead had a Korean lunch . I ate teriyaki chicken with white rice along with fries on the side with chipotle mayo and my friend had a chicken bibimbap plate with fires on the side as well. When taken the photo i really like the wood color of the table because it really made the plates stand out and showed off so many colors and the texture of the food . What I think about taking photographs of food and sharing it on Instagram is that it’s a really nice thing to do because you can show off many different types of dishes from not only where here in the U.S usually eats but also other different kinds of food from around the world and can maybe encourage others to try out new dishes.

Although cliché, sharing photos of food you’ve either had at a restaurant you visited, made yourself, or someone made for you is a common practice with frequent social media users. But it’s not joke that you can make money on something that would boost yours or someone elses reputation.  People who are successful at this are known as influencers and they are a good way for businesses and independent people to market themselves and get their name out there. I admire people who can reach this kind of status because it takes consistency with posting, updates, connecting and responding to the audience. This included the photos they post having some kind of visual quality and style. Influencers are necessary in this ever expanding online marketing world and they’re work, either as models or food, is invaluable.

My sister was in the hospital 2 days before thanksgiving giving birth to my new baby niece! She had to be hospitalised for at least 2 days and ended up not being home for thanksgiving. I cooked a big meal anyway for my mom to bring her to the hospital. I didn’t know how to make turkey the way my mom and sister do (nor did i want to spend the amount of time it would take to make it). So i bought a pork butt and glazed it in my family’s homemade honey mustard, brown sugar, pineapple juice glaze. It was AMAZING! We also had stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, maple glazed braised carrot spears with bacon bits, and pumpkin pie!

1. Needless to say, i was exhausted that day.

Over Thanksgiving weekend instead of having turkey, my family and I had something called peking duck (picture below). Peking duck is a traditional Chinese cuisine dish, it is prepared totally different from a turkey. Even though we did not have turkey, I feel that thanksgiving is not about what we do or what we eat, instead about spending time with family, friends, and whoever you are thankful for.

I believe that food photography requires passion and understanding of its nature. It has capabilities of showing viewers the ability to salivate their mouths and make their stomachs rumble just through a photo, in correlation, appealing photos of food can help promote business. In the end, not only is food photography a work of art but also a practice for food businesses.

Every year on Thanksgiving, my mom always cooks a big meal for the family. She would start cooking from 9am till 6pm. She would cook Mac and Cheese, stuffing, rice, pasta, turkey, steamed vegetables and many more. My favorite dish to eat out of them all would be the mac and cheese. Homemade mac and cheese has a good and better taste than the ones from the box. Especially they way my mom makes it. Food photography can be annoying to me sometimes due to people taking pictures of any piece of food thats in front of them. It’s cool taking pictures of food that looks nice and is something you don’t see everyday.  The thing that gets me annoyed is that whenever you go out to eat there’s always that one person that literally takes a picture of any food they see. Like I’m hungry, I just want to eat sometimes.

This Thanksgiving my family ate a Turkey, of course, and mash potatoes, some veggies and our attempt at making stuffing, but failing because someone misread the ingredients. We had also ate homemade corn bread.

My views on food photography on social media is that it’s beneficial yet also deceiving. It can be beneficial because it may get people to try things that their unfamiliar with, show what a certain restaurant has to offer on the menu, or even inspire someone to recreate the food. It can be deceiving because with photography, comes editing and effects. Some photographers may alter their food a certain way so its more appealing than how it is naturally. I personally follow many food photography accounts on social media to see what looks appealing to me, but before going to the restaurant I always have to check the yelp review to make sure the photo is accurate like the reviews.