Black Raspberries and Black Currants

Breakfast

This is the greatest time of the year to live in the Finger Lakes. In the morning I head up to the local Mennonite market, which is located right next to the fields where all the produce is grown. Berries that were on the vine before the sun came up are in my bowl for breakfast. Yum. I just eat 'em plain, nothing added. A big bowl of fruit is a meal. These strawberries just melt in your mouth—you hardly have to chew.

It's easy to be critical of the Instagrammy practice of people snapping quick pix of the food they're about to eat. But I don't know—I consider it kind of touching and human. It's a quiet little celebration, isn't it? Almost a secular way of saying grace. "Look what I get to eat!" Isn't that wonderful? Thanks and praise.

I would never make it as a food photographer, though. I tend to think of a continuum with documentary at one end and the impulse to control and perfect over at the other. Documentary photographers accept what they find. They want to show how things really look. Studio photographers tend to be over on the "perfecting" end, making things look just so. Food photographers definitely do that. They want to control the way things look and make them look the way they want them to look. 

                                 (me)

          •----------------•--------|-------------------------•

Documenting                                                                   Perfecting

It's worthwhile thinking where on this continuum you like to be. It can clarify where you stand, what you're after.

When I was in art school, we went on a studio visit to a big, beautiful, well-established local studio in D.C. I don't think we witnessed any part of this—I think we were just told the story, and I visualized it in my mind. (Isn't it funny that I can't quite remember which it was now? Memory is part fabulized.) Anyway the story is that they were doing a shoot for a fast food chain, and the restaurant delivered a stack of racks as high as a human, all the racks full of fresh buns. Searching for the perfect bun, the food stylist quickly inspected each candidate and flipped it over her shoulder as she rejected it. Out of those hundreds and hundreds of buns, they found three (the selects are called "heroes") worthy of being photographed for the shoot. On the floor of the studio behind the stylist was a cascading mountain of rejected buns.

I decided then and there not to be a food photographer. Perfection kinda bores me. If I had to sort through stacks of buns, I would rather look for the oddball one that had something wrong with it and that looked weird and hence, interesting. I'd rather photograph that. But I would never have the patience in the first place. It's a bun. It looks like it looks. Take that picture.

Good and good for you: blueberries, black raspberries, and black currants

I plucked out a few distorted raspberries before I took this, though. Tryin' the best I can to do what I'm supposed to do....

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dennis: "I've considered a similar scale, but instead of degree of control, I've looked at it as degree of creation. Found images on one end, fabricated on the other, with all sorts of variation in between. I love looking at photos made by people who create something that wasn't there, from Julie Blackmon to Abelardo Morell to Steve McCurry (whoops—snarky !), but my comfort zone, the reason I pick up a camera, is to find interesting things in the world in front of my eyes. Over the years, I've read articles about how, in order to grow as a photographer, you should challenge yourself to master this, that and the other thing, and I've dabbled with studio lighting and I just find it a chore. I guess that's too far on the creation side of the scale for me."

adamct: "The urge to perfection has some significant downsides that I've been thinking about more and more. Idealized photographs of perfect items/scenes/people have the effect of changing our perception of what is real in the world. The most compelling example I've heard of this was a photographer lamenting the fact that other photographers and magazines only published pictures of beautiful, clean, healthy lions, some of whom may have been photographed in a zoo, rather than in the wild. His point was that those images—which look wonderful in a magazine or advertisement—hide the fact that most wild lions look nothing like that. Lions in the wild may look emaciated, or have wounds or their manes may be ratty and infested with ticks. By only showing images of fat, healthy, clean lions, people believe that is how lions live in the wild, and therefore don't realize the actual plight of real lions. (I'm going off of memory here, so please excuse me if the example I'm thinking of didn't involve lions, but some other wild animal.)

"It's not hard to think of other examples where this plays out in daily life. If you only see pictures of slender, buxom, beautiful women with flawless skin, then you tend to believe that many women actually look like that. If all you see is pictures of hamburgers in perfect buns, you might expect to get a hamburger that looks like that the next time you are at McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's.

"That may not seem like a big deal, but think about how that plays out in another context: there are lots of children who won't eat fruit that has any blemishes whatsoever. No bananas with brown spots. No slightly bruised raspberries. No apples that are less than perfectly red. This is partly because they are led to believe that fruit should be perfect, and therefore any flaw is a sign that the fruit is bad or defective somehow. And because real fruit has minor blemishes or irregularities, these children wind up eating hardly any fruit at all. Imagine if those children regularly saw pictures of fruit and vegetables with minor blemishes being celebrated on Instagram or in advertisements as part of a delicious meal. Might that change attitudes? I'm almost certain it would. And we might wind up with more fruits and vegetables that are bred for flavor, rather than appearances and their hardiness.

"I could go on an on with other examples of how perfectionism skews our perception of what is normal, but this comment is already long enough...."

Graham Byrnes: "The sister of a friend was an assistant in an advertising agency when I was an undergrad...so, early '80s. They had the McDonalds account for Australia. None of the food was real; it was all crafted carefully from synthetic rubber to be reliably perfect, day in, day out. I got to hold a french fry and, aside from smell and grease, it looked absolutely 100% real."

Mike replies: Just going on memory, and IANAE, but I believe that's illegal in the U.S. The food pictured can be inedible—for instance, a burger might have acid dripped on it to create fake "steam"—but it has to be the real food being advertised.

Comments

[Andrew Lamb]

I’m not very well-versed in this but, aren’t you supposed to eat some protein in evey meal, including breakfast?

[Not if you buy the China Study / whole-food plant-based (WFPB) agenda, which I do. It's impossible to eat a varied WFPB diet and not get enough protein. The one supplement you need is B-12. But I acknowledge that diet is essentially ideological in our current state of scientific ignorance, so other people will have loyalties to different stories. I try not to tell other people what to do, but just go my own way. The omnivore's dilemma is still very much with us. --Mike]

[JOHN GILLOOLY]

I often find myself pondering this issue. I certainly sit very close to the documentary end of that spectrum - maybe a dash or two in. What exists is often at its most unique as it is. I would prefer the unique to the perfect in almost all areas of my life. I prefer to see and find images vs "making" them, which I know can be a controversial subject in photo circles. Like you, I am not that interesting in exerting maximum control over that scene.

[cdembrey]

I've Been taking supplemental vitamins since the 1970s—it works for me.

I've shot a lot of food, both for print ads, and TV commercials. The photographer doesn't pick the "hero bun," the food stylist does. She also picks the "hero patty." And the food stylist also places the meat on the bun 8-)

For an Amour Star Turkey shoot they flew-in a person to airbrush the partially roasted turkey the perfect brown 8-) You can't make this stuff up!

BTW Huntington Beach grows a lot of strawberries—nothing tastes better than fresh strawberries.

[s.wolters]

Reminds me of this:

Only the bishop gave the baboon the bun
The only bishop gave the baboon the bun
The bishop only gave the baboon the bun
The bishop gave only the baboon the bun
The bishop gave the only baboon the bun
The bishop gave the baboon only the bun
The bishop gave the baboon the only bun
The bishop gave the baboon the bun only

(Lancelot Hogben - The Vocabulary of Science)

[Rich Szmyd]

Thanks, Mike, I really appreciate your take on snapping photos of your food. It definitely is that for me. Thanks and appreciation and grace for what I am about to eat. A celebration!

[John Camp]

Can't remember where, when or who anymore, but I was once regaled by a food photographer about the problems of shooting pizza. Apparently, pizza in a photograph doesn't look like something you'd want to put in your mouth.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

My kind of food photography:

One Bad Apple, 2012

[John Krumm]

I like that graph. Makes me feel better about how lazy I am when it comes to lighting and setting up the shot. I'm a documentarian. :)

[Roger]

Bacon or it didn't happen.

[Steve Higgins]

"The one supplement you need is B-12."

I think you will also need to take a folic acid supplement, the two need to be in balance.

I tend to a slight B12 deficiency myself - it's my excuse for regular steak and salmon. ;-)

[Herman Krieger]

"how do ya' like them apples?"

[Michael Perini]

When you do commercial work, it is not really about the photographer's preference, you are often presented with a layout and asked if you can make it happen.
That is very different than personally directed work . Both can be fun, I did it for pay and loved the problem solving aspect of it, now I do it for fun and change basically nothing except perhaps the light or direction of approach.
In the old days of food photography there was a great deal more 'manipulation' of the product (including things lit partially filling the bowl with gravel so the vegetables in the vegetable soup appeared more plentiful. There was artificial steam, thickening agents & other stuff. While client preference still drives the look of food photography, the trend has been toward much more realistic presentations. Including the presentation of raw ingredients and lifestyle queues.
For Chef Prepared dishes the chef's presentation is usually honored with minor fixes. The choice of shooting angle and plate rotation being the main tools.
Though rejecting piles of a product in order to find a 'hero' for the shot had some distinct benefits. We had Cutty Sark as a client and we felt obliged to call and tell them that they better check their label machine because we had to go through quite a few bottles to find one one where the label wasn't slightly skewed.......
Of course by the end of it all WE were slightly skewed.
A long time ago........
There is actually a reason for the attempts at perfection, once photographed imperfections are exaggerated, your eye goes there rather that on the product the client is trying to sell.

[Andrew Molitor]

I had exactly those same bowls.

[William Lewis]

It would be interesting to take your continuum and merge it with Dennis' at 90 degrees to the middle for a 2D chart.

A possible third part is that of snapshot vs deliberation. Sometimes a photo must be taken in the instant or be lost (Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico is the classic example) but others reward deliberation, care & time (Weston's Pepper No. 30 at f/240 with an exposure time of 4-6 hours!) It could be interesting to explore this as a z axis to that previous x:y chart and see how various photographers plot out - or perhaps even more interestingly individual photographs - in that 3D view.

[Gavin Mclelland]

Fresh ground black pepper on strawberries sounds weird tastes great

[Patrick Dodds]

Are black raspberries blackberries? Also, didn't some scientists discover that rats fed on a diet of blueberries grew younger and started to dance?

[MikeR]

Nutrient density. Per 100 calories of a specific food, how much protein is available.

Check out Romaine lettuce. It might surprise you.

[Andre Y]

The two ends of the spectrum are not mutually exclusive, especially for a subject that moves: you can set up an area with perfect lighting and details, and let the subject do their thing so there is still a large element of spontaneity and discovery in the photo. I'd argue that even for static subject like food, there is quite a bit of discovery possible if you try to work all the angles to the subject.

[Dave New]

I subscribe to all things in moderation.

I'm about done reading a Steve Ambrose book on the Lewis & Clark Expedition on my Kindle. One of the more difficult aspects was figuring out what to take on the trip that could last through the lean times when they couldn't fish or hunt for game, which was plentiful in many locations along the way.

Even then, they almost starved to death in the Rockies, and also had severe dietary problems when subsisting on nothing but buffalo and similar game meat day after day (elk, deer, beaver, and even dog and horse). Scurvy and other vitamin deficient diseases haunted them, and it was really no better when they then subsisted on nothing but 'roots' (vegetables) or sometimes only 'roots' and fish. They really ended up punishing their bodies with the extremes in diet they put themselves through.

As I said, "everything in moderation, easy does it."

[DavidB]

I am more Documentation than Perfection on your scale as I shoot a lot of weather scenes. It's a bit difficult to rearrange the clouds to get a better composition.

[PaulW]

Your breakfast photo is making me drool! Although I live in the desert southwest now, I grew up not far from where you live. I was raised (spoiled) on fresh produce. When late summer/autumn comes around, make sure to check out grape pie. It's one of the things I miss most about the Finger Lakes.

[subroto mukerji]

And ...
The baboon gave the bishop only the bun.
And so on, ad infinitum. Hahaha!

[YB Hudson III]

Half eaten Moldy fruit with flies, wasps, worms and grubs. Click!
Super wide macro of course.

YB Hudson III

[Graham Byrnes]

The sister of a friend was an assistant in an advertising agency when I was an undergrad... so early 80's. They had the McDonalds account for Australia.
None of the food was real, it was all crafted carefully from synthetic rubber to be reliably perfect, day in, day out. I got to hold a french fry and, aside from smell and grease, it looked absolutely 100% real.

[Philomaphos]

“It's easy to be critical of the Instagrammy practice of people snapping quick pix of the food they're about to eat. But I don't know—I consider it kind of touching and human. It's a quiet little celebration, isn't it? Almost a secular way of saying grace.“

Beautifully said.

[Francisco Cubas]

I don't quiet get the scorn for people that instagram their food. Sure, there's a good dosis of boast out there, of "look in what fancy restaurant I'm eating", but theres' also what you mention, thanks and praise for the universe, and also, little celebrations of love and friendship, and of the humble art of home cooking. I my self mostly do it to save a memory of my wife's cooking, to remember later that otherwise normal afternoon when she gave me love in the form of a cutely arranged salad. Also, we have learned a lot about food and cooking watching those pictures on Instagram, they are a marvelous window to the world's food that wasn't available just a decade ago.

Finally, let's not forget that famous food instagramer avant-garde: Edward Weston.

[robert e]

I like to think that I use the camera to see and show what is, so I see myself to the left of the scale as well.

But documenting an expressive or suggestive presentation, such as presentation of food for the table, or in a store display, is different from documenting the things that are being thus presented.

So, the way I see it, even strictly documentary food photography can appear to be all over the scale, depending on where exactly the intended subject falls on the continuum of things and ideas around the word "food".

[Peggy Collins]

In response to the comments about food photography and faking it.

Sometimes I think I really should have gone into food photography instead of pets.

I had a friend who was working as a food stylist for a while. She quit because she couldn't take the detail work. I love detail work.

I have boxes and boxes of 'props' for my pet and HO scale people work. I've bought and or made fake food myself. And on some of the items, if it's not exactly right, I grab my paints and brushes and enhance it. I made my own 'roasted' marshmallows once using foam and paints.

Google "fake food" sometime. You'd be amazed at what is out there.

My aunt is an artist, works in oils, acrylics and now pastels. She started out painting set ups of fruit and breads. She had to learn to work fast or would take a simple photograph and work from that. Now, she borrows the food props I have and can leave it setup for days if need be.

I love progress.

[John Robison]

Want to see a perfectionist freak out? The folks who keep their photo equipment ‘pristine’, have them look into one of their ‘perfect’ lenses with sunlight backlighting the lens. Even a brand new, right out of the box, high ticket lens will look just awful. A bit mean I admit, but there a little bit of devil in the best of us, and that too bad I guess.