This article "First Camera, Then Fork" is brilliant. It is about time someone commented on the notion that people do in fact savor their foods in more ways than one. I have been taking pictures of my food for years...probably since junior high or high school. Food is a beautiful thing. I love to cook and I think the presentation of food is what makes it so worth while. When you eat at a nice restaurant your food isn't just slopped on to the plate, or separated per dish. The food is presented through the chef's eye and the result is usually a vivacious blend of nourishment that one can't help but snap a photo of.
My friends have been teasing me for years about taking pictures of my food (honestly I may have subconsciously stopped doing it as much because of them, but thank you article...I think I will continue to document my life through food). We will all go out to a restaurant and they will be like "oh there she goes with the camera". I can't help but knowing how much work somebody put into that dish or dessert. To some people it is a masterpiece. Even if it is something as simple as a piece of fresh produce, there I go with my camera. It is things like an overly-sized apple, or a decadent ice cream cone that you want to remember.
Like anything, there is a certain OCD that could be labeled with the hobby. A perfect example is when the article talks about a man leaving his wife at dinner for an hour so he could go get a different lens to capture the dish. There is a fine line between pure enjoyment, and using this photo op as a source of keeping track of your diet. Just like one of the women in the article, I believe it is a good way of showing something to someone when you have been traveling. You can try and describe the delightful field of greens with goat cheese, leeks, and fennel bulb that you had at a cafe in Paris. Then again, a picture is worth a thousand words so good luck getting as good of a reaction as if you were to just snap a photo.
We document places we go, people we meet, and new clothes that we have bought. So why not document a huge part of our lifes...the food that keeps us spry. As the Web site developer Carl Rosenberg states in the article “You have more of a direct connection with your food, so it forms a more essential memory of an occasion. I think photographing food is a more accurate way to document life. Food isn’t going to put on a special face when you take a picture of it.”
xoxo,
K
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