Is Food worth it?

[Phil Crean]

That's too bad, Phil. As I said, food related images have been just over 30% of my sales.

 

Elaborate recipes are pretty worthless. Stay with simple, relevant things: olives, cheese, a certain fish. What's unique to the Canary Islands? 

 

Funnily a few that have sold are Spanish dishes, and/or include people...

 

Will have a think about some things that you don't get elsewhere.

 

Phil

[Robert M Estall]

OK Davey and Betty, cooks and chefs excused, but lets have the phones off them anyway!

 

There I am in a pub or a restaurant or at a dinner table and before long, someone will whip out their poxy not-so-smart phone to show me their awful photos. They take ages scrolling around trying to find them because editing is an unknown concept and when they finally do find them, I can't really see them and whatever the conversation was, has long gone.

 

Worse than the old home movies. Oh gawd, they can do videos as well! But I've so far, been spared that.

[Phil Robinson]

There was a book out a few years ago called Eats Shoots and Leaves - I assume that was about restaurant photography.

[Ed Rooney]

Eats, Shoots and Leaves it was/is, with a comma, and it was about proper punctuation, of course. 

[John Richmond]

Shouldn't the restaurant photography one be Shoots, argues with waiter about using a camera, Eats, complains food is cold, argues again, is thrown out of restaurant.  

[Phil Robinson]

Eats, Shoots and Leaves it was/is, with a comma, and it was about proper punctuation, of course. 

Of, course it - was.

[Ed Rooney]

[kimba]

I do sell images of food - and I'm always surprised at which ones sell. Random "Oh can I take a photo of your plate?" at a foodie festival, or the snapshot I took of an apple sitting on a cutting board. Nothing that was staged. 

 

It doesn't hurt to take food shots when given the opportunity. I go through phases of shooting almost everything I cook.

[Betty LaRue]

OK Davey and Betty, cooks and chefs excused, but lets have the phones off them anyway!

 

There I am in a pub or a restaurant or at a dinner table and before long, someone will whip out their poxy not-so-smart phone to show me their awful photos. They take ages scrolling around trying to find them because editing is an unknown concept and when they finally do find them, I can't really see them and whatever the conversation was, has long gone.

 

Worse than the old home movies. Oh gawd, they can do videos as well! But I've so far, been spared that.

I don't think I've ever shown anyone a picture from my phone. I have posted images of a product, as in "you need to try this, it really works! Or it tastes great!" On Facebook, of course. Or someone says, "take a picture of it and send it to me."

 

But then, I don't bore people with my vacation pictures, either.

Betty

[Foreign Export]

good discussion - i have never photographed food - put off by those people on Facebook and other platforms that like to share images of their breakfast - never understood that  -and don't want to

have sold images of pie  shops though, and other foodstuffs on supermarket shelves

so broadly yes i think food as a category is well worth shooting - in whatever form takes your fancy

 

Martin

[Hellonearth]

Another food related story. I have an enormous dislike of litter. I find it an affront to the community in which one lives that people would throw their wrappers on to the ground. I have now taken to photographing the litter including the name of the company that produces the wrapping. There is actually a nice little app, litterati, which does the same with the aim of naming and shaming.

 

On my recent trip I was so annoyed I got to the point of typing an email to the CEO one of the large food companies, an Anglo-Dutch conglomerate which produces many of the products whose wrappers are blighting a once beautiful destination. I do live in the real world and added a p.s. to the communications bobo who I expected to read it to surprise me and actually pass it on to the CEO. I almost fell off my chair when he replied to me in person. The company saw the problem and are working on solutions. The word greenwashing came up in the back of my mind, but a couple of days ago I saw a small article that the company, Unilever, had announced that they intended all of their products to have bio-degradable, compostable wrappers by 2025.

 

I have no doubt they were planning to do so anyway, despite my "boze brief uit Bali" but its good to see that people are coming up with solutions.

Totally agree with you. I live in Thailand and the litter is appalling. It has to be said that it is the Thais themselves who are the worst culprits. Many a Westerner participates in beach clean up days but there is hardly a Thai to be seen. Same problem exists in Indonesia, Cambodia etc.

[PhotoEclectica]

There's food and food. Homemade food shot at home or in the studio, with proper lighting you can make, and Restaurant food shot on the fly, with no chances of making some decent lighting. IMO both are worth it, but I would do the first type on Alamy and the second one on That App. My two cents.

[Robert M Estall]

They had a bit of a blitz in our local town fining people who were stamping out their fag-ends on the side-walk but that only lasted about a week. Quite a few people felt a fairly fierce north wind in their pockets. As for crisp packets and drinks cartons, I haven't seen any name and shame campaigns here in Suffolk. Not infrequently i see stuff flying out the windows of a car traveling in front of me. I don't think trying to pull them over  to explain the error of their ways would work out well.