Food Photography: A Form of Class Separation Part 2

Food Photography: A Form of Class Separation

Part 2: Amateur Food Photography

Professional Photograph of Sushi Courtesy of www.ninavanbeck.com

Amateur Photograph of Sushi Courtesy of @ELLYALLIOTI on Instagram

Amateur Photograph of Oysters Courtesy of @ELLYALLIOTI on Instagram

Amateur Photograph of a Home Cooked Meal Courtesy of @littleparente on Instagram

Photograph of Steak and Crab Courtesy of @littleparente on Instagram

           Technology advancements over the past decade have added greatly to the increase in amateur food photography. In today’s world everyone has a camera on his or her cell phone, which makes it very convenient to take a quick picture before diving into a beautifully prepared meal.  Along with camera phones becoming commonplace, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have made it simple for average people to share their food photography with the world. Nowadays anyone can take a picture and have it uploaded to the Internet in a matter of minutes. In the second part of this two-part blog I will look at amateur food porn and how it attempts to emulate professional food photography as well as why it has become such a popular phenomenon.

            Because people are commonly bombarded with professional food porn through advertising and television shows, it is no surprise that most amateur food porn attempts to emulate those photographs. Even though common citizens are not spending the entire day constructing the perfect shot, the remarkable capabilities of the camera phone as well as the photo editing possibilities on social media sites have allowed for amateur food porn to look quite similar to the images they are desperately attempting to mirror.  For instance, above are two images of sushi. The one with a single roll is a professionally taken photograph where as the one with three rolls is an amateur photo that was posted on Instagram. As is clearly visible, the two photos are really not that different. The amateur photographer in a matter of minutes was able to pretty closely match a professionally taken photo that took all day to prepare. Just like in the professional photograph, the amateur photographer has chosen only to include sushi and dining paraphernalia in the image, leaving out all the diners who were seated around the table.  The amateur photographer also took the photo from a similar angle as the professional photographer, which adds to the resemblance between the images. This example shows how the advertisement industries bombardment of the general public with food porn has influenced the amateur food photography movement. People now have a rigid belief in how a food photograph should be taken due to the amount of exposure they have had to professional food porn their entire lives.  

            Similar to how professional food photography discriminates against the lower class, amateur food photography is becoming a way in which people are displaying their wealth to friends and acquaintances. In a day in age where many people have thousands of friends on Facebook and other social media sites, many in a matter of minutes can view a single amateur food photograph. By taking photos of food at expensive restaurants or of high quality homemade meals, people, in a way are bragging to their friends about their possessions. For instance, the photo pictured above of the oysters is an amateur photograph taken at a restaurant. Even if the photographer did not mean it as such, she is making a bold statement about herself by posting this image. By uploading a picture of oysters, a very expensive seafood delicacy, this woman is showing how she is wealthy enough to afford this meal. There is no way that every Instagram user who has access to this photograph has the same ability to feast on this exquisite appetizer. For that reason, even if it was not the photographer’s true intention, this photograph shows how amateur food photography is commonly used to display one’s status in society.

In the article Food Porn, Will Goldfarb, chief-owner of WillPowder and WillEquipped, states how “[m]aking food for a purpose other than pure nourishment is usually done solely for art, which is why people will pay one hundred dollars for a fancy restaurant and two dollars for McDonald’s, when both have the same calories” (McBride, 42). Even though the two meals accomplish the same goal in terms of nourishment, they are quite different when it comes to food porn. A McDonalds hamburger is something that everyone has access to, where as a one hundred dollar dinner is saved for the social elite. Unlike how posting a picture of a new one hundred thousand dollar sports car is seen as bragging and is looked down upon by society, posting a picture of expensive food is not. This is why food photography has become so popular. It is the new way in which the social elite can flaunt their wealth while not coming off as pompous. 

At the end of the day, the importance of this topic comes from the fact that many Americans and even more people around the world suffer from food insecurity, which is “defined as the limited availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the limited ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways” (Stuff, 33). When 17.6 percent of households with children are struggling with food insecurity it seems wrong to use food as a way to brag about one’s own wealth. Unlike a fancy new car or house, food is something that all people need in order to survive. This makes the use of food photography as a way to display ones elite status in society seem even more like a stab in the heart to those who do not know where their next meal is coming from.   

Bibliography

Carafoli, John F. "Tempting the Palate: The Food Stylist's Art." Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 3.2 (2003): 94-97. JSTOR. Web. 2 May 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/gfc.2003.3.2.94.pdf>. This article describes what goes into the preparation of taking a photograph of food as well as the history of food styling. The author of this essay is trying to convey how much work goes into taking a single photo of food because of the necessity for the photograph to appeal to all five senses of the viewer. This text will be very useful in my photo essay because it will give me the information necessary to understand the difference between a good and bad photograph of food.

McBride, Anne E. "Food Porn." Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 10.1 (2010): 38-46. JSTOR. Web. 6 May 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/gfc.2010.10.1.38.pdf?acceptTC=true>. This article discusses the idea of food porn focusing on whether or not the name "food porn" is a fair way to describe food photography. This author’s main goal is to contest whether food porn actually does exist or if it is just a bad nickname for food photography. This article will be very useful in my photo essay because it gives me a lot of information on food porn as well as social issues involved with the topic.

         Mosbergen, Dominique. "As Restaurants Ban Photos, Some Worry About The End Of Food Porn.” Huffington Post 24 Jan. 2013: n. pag. Huffington Post. Web. 9 May 2013.

 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/restaurant-photo-ban-death-of-food-porn_n_2543306.html>.

Stuff, Janice E., et al. "The Prevalence of Food Insecurity and Associated Factors among Households with Children in Head Start Programs in Houston, Texas and Birmingham, Alabama." Race, Gender & Class 16.3/4 (2009): 31-47. JSTOR. Web. 6 May 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/41674673.pdf>. This article discusses food insecurity in Birmingham, Alabama and Houston, Texas. The author's thesis is to prove to the leader how the food security in these cities are much worse than in most places in the United States. This article will be useful in my photo essay because it gives me useful statistics on food insecurity for not only families in these cities but also in the United States as a whole.