Photography is a pretty duplicitous medium. Or rather, all images are duplications of an already existing reality or a fragment of the imagination brought to reality by a new medium.
Most notably, we discuss the distorted reality images present in the context of body photoshopping in celebrity magazine covers and spreads. You know, the extra brushing Scarlett Johansson for being The Black Widow even if she's already hotter than 99% of the general population and badass to boot (well, as the black widow). And J Law with all her photo brushing because she's apparently "fat by hollywood standards (her quote)." But anyways, I think food photography is another nice reminder (HA that transition was terrible) that the physical appearance of something or someone does not reflect on other sensory details that define a person/something. You just have to think back to your 3rd grade cliches like "Looks can be deceiving" or "Never judge a book by its cover."
Likewise, food isn't just the color, the shape or apparent texture of a picture. Food is more importantly defined by its actual tastes and textures and how certain combinations excite different sensory paths. I mean, photoshopping people is one thing, but the
lengths food photography goes to in order to create the image of ~fresh~ or ~steaming~ or ~crispy~ or ~fluffy~ ect is mind boggling. There are stabilizers injected into meat to keep it from limping, blow torches to achieve maximal burnt colors, meticulously placed sesame seeds for the most visually appeal spread of seeds:bun ratio. All before you even make it to the freaking computer and boot up photoshop CS10000.
While for advertising, food presentation is obviously paramount, I do think food blogging can chill a little with the picture perfect food. Visual presentation is certainly important for food (hence plating!), but I think its silly when it comes at the cost of producing something that
actually tastes good. I speak from semi-personal experience that 1) pretty pictures do not mean that X blogger's recipe was actually
that good, and 2) these pictures that I post are a lie that involve an embarrassing number of awkward repositioning for "optimal natural light" and "clean backgrounds" ect.
I mean, these pictures actually aren't that good, but sometimes you'll catch a behind the scene post from a food-blogger and there is
literally a mini-photo studio by some random window, or on some random rustic looking box that ISN'T EVEN IN THE KITCHEN. I guess I'm more of a fan of the in-the-moment pictures, the ones you take at the scene of the crime with sticky wisps of powdered sugar lingering on the counter, bowls with scraped out batter lingering on the sides. I don't know, I try to be as sterile as possible when I bake, but sometimes things just get complicated and you end up with some batter on the counter. Pristine pictures give the false impression that I am a far better baker than I actually am, which gives unrealistic expectations when I attempt random-ass baking projects. Like these green tea cupcakes for example. I mean you can already semi-tell that these cupcakes were a bit overcooked by the dark-brown green tint. And to top it all off, you can kinda see that these cupcakes were on the dense side, mostly likely due to a combination of overbaking, using too much flour, and/or mixing too much. Common issues I need to resolve in my cupcake baking game still.
The basic TL;DR is: food pictures can be pretty, but looks are deceiving. These cupcakes were too dense so use yo scale and don't overmix.
Cupcake recipe from
Cupcake Project (she also has a red bean frosting I want to try one day!) and cream cheese frosting from
Oishii Treats.
And in other news, I have a
tumblr (awkwardplatters.tumblr.com) dedicated to food pictures ya'll can follow if you want to look at
actually nice pictures of food.
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