talon | People DO That?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/20/AR2010052002808.html?hpid=sec-tech

"Yet by the time the food had been moved around to get the right lighting for photos - taken with a tripod-mounted camera - what the blogger probably ended up with was Warm Potato-Warm Potato, says Achatz. "

I have a Yelp account and I review the restaurants in which I eat. Sometimes I take pictures, but it's a quick snap just to remind me what I ate. I'm not going to ruin a perfectly good meal by being all artsy-fartsy about it, finicky about camera angles, and a prima donna about lighting.

I'm not taking food pics for some high paying art journal and I certainly am not being paid for eating the meal and reporting on it. I don't have a huge following at Yelp (mostly because I really don't eat out often and usually I eat at cheap places) and I don't post pics there of the food I order.

I am in total agreement with Grant Achatz of the Alinea Restaurant in Chicago: "The priority becomes capturing that memory," he says. "When in fact there is no memory because you didn't actually live in that moment."

That's why my photos are memory sketches, not magazine quality "photo food" (which is often doctored up to make it look prettier - a huge quibble I have with magazine food pictures). I would far rather have the memory and a blurry, dimly lit photo than a stunning photo and food that isn't at its best because I took so long photographing it that it congealed/melted/whatever.

When I eat out, I do so for the food and for the companionship, not for a picture. If I seriously want a beautiful picture of the food, I'll ask if I can buy it and have it served somewhere where I can get that "perfect shot" and then discard the food. It won't be edible after I'm done with "make up" and lighting and staging and all. I'm sure most restaurants would prefer this.

Of course, that means buying the same dish twice over - once to ruin with "perfect photography" and one to actually eat.

I can't afford to do that, so I take snapshots and then enjoy the meal -and my friends.