I love taking pictures in general but when it comes to taking pictures of food, I find it to be irritating. Every time i go out to eat with my family, friends or the people around me the first thing that they do when the food is served is they say “WAIT” takes out their phones or canon cameras. They take about three to five minutes or even longer trying to get a perfect picture from different varieties of angles and upload them onto Facebook or instagram like Is that really necessary? The best part of food is when the food is still fresh and hot. Within that time that most people waste in taking perfect pictures the food won’t taste as great when it gets cold. Hate to be mean but now a days i say no pictures when the food is served and if they want to take pictures it would be best if they just take  pictures of their own food so i can enjoy my food when it is still hot and fresh.

I love taking pictures of food specially when I’m in restaurants and the food has a beautiful design or it was served looking so good, my mother always tell me “Why are you taking pictures of your food just eat it!”. Taking pictures is something that I really love and I enjoy it, not only because I love it but because I love saving memories of places or food that I eat. And now that I’m taking this class “History Photography” I know that is gonna be really interesting.

I never had really felt the necessity of taking pictures of food whether in a supermarket or whether I am about to eat. The only time I have taken pictures of the food is when I have made cakes, but more in my culinary and baking classes I done in high school I took pictures of the productions their but besides that its about it. With this new learning community I am being opened up to a new point of view of photography and food and its connections , I am looking foward to makeing this a new hobby. I seen tons of wonderful pictures out their that people have taken to share with others but I feel some type of way when theirs pictures displayed of food that’s been half way eaten and I just don’t find the artistic view on those pictures, I think that just a little to much. Pictures of food can provoke a certain view on a specific dish, it can transfer many different things  such as the aromas, and some pictures can make you hungry.

People around me love to take pictures of their food, which I do not understand at all. In fact, for me, the most exciting moment in the restaurant is when my food is ready and I’m about to eat the delicious dish. However, almost every time, my friends ruin the best part of my mealtime by thrusting their cameras between my food and my fork. They go through a serious angle and lighting calculation process before taking pictures with their iphones. After waiting for them to go through all the hassle, then they “let” me eat my food. My friends claim that they take pictures because they want to share their memories with their friends and families. Very few of them take pictures to promote their own recipes, and I do not have any problems with that because they do it when they are alone, not causing any trouble. As a person who is skeptical about sharing mere trifles with others, “just want to let everyone know that I had a good steak” part does not make sense at all. Nevertheless, I try to respect other people’s preferences. Just don’t make everybody on the table to wait for you to take pictures.

The Best Lunch! And it makes for a great photo op.

I solely believe that food is art despite the particular model of camera. With the advancement in food technology and techniques, any type of food can become an edible masterpiece. As portrayed in our class, food can be as artistic as Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” such as the “Double Mona Lisa” by Vik Muniz that we discussed which entirely consisted of peanut butter and jelly. As well as his other art works like “Action Photo, After Hans Namuth”, which depicts the recreation of Hans Namuth’s photograph of Jackson Pollock painting in his studio. The portrait was created solely from chocolate syrup.

Pictures that are captured on a cellular device can be considered as art based on one’s perception of artistic value within photography. Sometimes, food-themed pictures taken from cell phones are only for entertainment purposes. In this modern day society of social media, sharing interesting personal thoughts and intimate moments through havens such as Instagram, can show their food encounters in a more universal setting. But food pictures can possess certain qualities that express issues in an abstract, artistic way. “Frozen Foods with String Beans” by Irving Penn displays the complex truth about the nutritional values of frozen foods based on shapes, sizes and, ultimately, coloring through his portraits. There are many categories in the practice of photography and all can be evoke different levels of art. Irving Penn once said,

“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves

 the viewer a changed person for having seen it; it is in one word, effective.”

 (Behnke, “The Sunday Magazine: Irving Penn”, 2014)

When it came to food, he responded with this simplistic quote that explains all food themed pictures, “Photographing a cake can be art”. (BBC News, “American photographer Penn dies”, 2009)

Works Cited:

Behnke, M. (2014, July 13). The Sunday Magazine: Irving Penn. Retrieved September 11, 2014, from http://colognoisseur.com/tag/irving-penn/

American photographer Penn dies. (2009, October 7). Retrieved September 11, 2014, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8296030.stm

Taking picture of food, is one of my daily routines. At first it was just a fun way for me to kill time, and control the portion of food I was eating, but now it became a habit. I do take pictures of most of the food I eat and make, but I can proudly say that I am not obsessed. Some people just take the whole thing to the next level because they don’t know when to stop! I see people posting thousand pictures of food daily, and it makes me want to go like  ” please take it easy…”.Just like Mr. Javier Garcia from the article, I don’t post all the pictures I take online, I keep most of them for my personal record and look at them when I get bored. Due to the increasing number of people posting ridiculous pictures online, Katherine Markovich, published a book called ” AN OPEN LETTER TO PEOPLE WHO TAKE PICTURES OF FOOD WITH INSTAGRAM”, which is basically telling people that just because they consider themselves foodies and take pictures, doesn’t make them an artist. I think that book in a way, is addressed to people who literally take pictures of everywhere without taking into consideration their surroundings.

Our chef Jen took these photos of our first bread production. We are off to a great start. Here are some of the 12 steps of bread making:

#1 Scaling Ingredients

#2 Mixing

# 3 Fermentation-yeast converts sugars and starched into carbon dioxide (CO2) and alcohol.

#7 Benching relaxes the gluten, fermentation continues

#8 Make up  and         panning

ready for the proof box #9

Egg wash to make a shiny crust and it acts like glue to make the seeds stick. Egg washing bread is not one of the 12 steps

Venting product lets steam escape (it is not one of the 12 steps)

#10 Baking (in the oven)

#11 Cooling

Finished product- looks great. After #11 Cooling, it can be #12 sold, stored, or served