Weird Trendy Food Lighting
In the last few issues of Bon Appetit, I noticed a trend in this weird coloration in the food photos- sort of this 1950's, cold, blueish tinge, like it was taken under flourescent lighting or something worse. You can see it on the latest cover. I get that this is supposed to be the Newest Edgy Thing, but it is, IMHO, really, really ugly.
Does anyone think this actually enhances the food pictured, or am I just antiquated?
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25 Comments:
Heh, I read this as "lightening" which was another story entirely in my head and very funny...
feriorrenna at 10:22PM on 01/10/09
Do you mean Feb with 50 Ways to Eat Green and the chimichurri steak with kalamata olives? I thought it looked good...
Perhaps I like a vintage look?
'cept I didn't think it looked vintage.
carolrsfMISSESTEXAS at 11:34PM on 01/10/09
Can you post the picture here?
pjracz10 at 1:46AM on 01/11/09
I'm guessing they used broad-spectrum lighting, like the GE Reveal bulbs, which has a serious blue tint to it. I worked in a print shop for a while and while we needed that kind of light for color accuracy the custodian only replaced half the fixtures. His explanation was that the blue paint on the wall and the blue carpeting would drive us nuts after a while. Even with half the lights changed there was still this weird shimmer.
LunaPierCook at 7:00AM on 01/11/09
I never realized how important lighting is until I ate at an Italian restaurant with a (gag) red overhead light. I ordered gnocchi and couldn't even eat it because it looked awful. I boxed it and took it home - ate it the next day under a normal white light.
Lighting is also responsible for magazine food looking utterly awful. Of a well-respected publication, an avid reader once said, "I can't believe they found so many new ways to make food look like vomit." The publication has since made improvements to its photography practices.
Best food photography in a mass-marketed magazine: Saveur. OMG. Monthly food porn. The food doesn't look washed out and antiseptic like a surgical procedure being photographed. They make you... hungry.
therealchiffonade at 8:35AM on 01/11/09
I did notice the lighting in Bon Ap and think its dreadful. It certainly evokes things trendy/vintage, (or even macabre like a morgue?) and I would suspect that the creative direction of the mag is trying to distinguish itself from all the others in the field, but I think it makes the food look reallly un-appetizing.
spiceweasel at 9:55AM on 01/11/09
This reminds me of the horrifying pix in the fabulous Nigella Lawson's Feast. On page 7 there's a roast turkey that looks like a howling Marley's ghost. In Forever Summer there's a plate of smoked salmon that looks covered with green wriggling bacteria on page 83. I could go on and on and on....
Pointy at 2:16PM on 01/11/09
@realchiff- "antiseptic like a surgical procedure" - yep, that's a perfect description. Or like a crime photographer took the pictures. There's no warmth or life in them.
moibec at 2:45PM on 01/11/09
Tell me about it. They've been doing this for a while. What on earth is this? Eek.
Michele Humes at 9:24PM on 01/11/09
See also this. Whose idea was the black background? FAIL.
Michele Humes at 9:25PM on 01/11/09
@michele humes, yep, vomit.
cybercita at 9:46PM on 01/11/09
The last picture linked, with the comment made above about pics being clinical, made me snicker since the container looks like a petri dish.
They sorta painted themselves into a corner with the Fantastic Four pic with the colors they had in the pics to avoid washing anything out. I personally hate white backgrounds.
Just looked on their home page, I didn't see that many pics that were blue tinged...only a couple.
Cassaendra at 10:25PM on 01/11/09
I like the retro look.
pjracz10 at 1:23AM on 01/12/09
This lighting dates to BonAp's re-design last year. It seems to be an attempt to court the young design- and food-loving population (that's us!), but they've missed the mark. The colors in their print mag remind me of the 70's jello cookbook.
What's worse is their tendency to show blown-up macro shots, so that the walnuts in a salad are about 2 inches across. Yes, we love macro shots, but food should always look like food. Please, no more extreme close-ups of cakes and stews.
butterface at 12:48PM on 01/12/09
Two more adjectives to describe the look: sinister and embalmed.
I have an old (late '70's Ball Blue Book (for canning)) in which the photos are very much like this new retro vintage look in the food mags. Problem is, I like my food to look fresh, not vintage. It's fun for clothing, furniture, and handbags, but when it comes to food "looks", old and cold is not cool.
moibec at 2:05PM on 01/12/09
Photographing food is not easy. I took a lot of photography classes in college. Still lifes of food are tricky. We often used coffee in place of wine because wine photographs lighter. Often what you see in pictures is fake food. It is food created just for being photgraphed and is not the actual food or something that is edible.
Bon Ap, I often skim over the pics because they are often over orchestrated and often kitchy. The food mags I read I read for concepts, trends and techniques.
I get a lot of magazines. Bon Ap, Gourmet, Fine Foods, Martha Stewart Living. I find Martha takes the best pictures. She must have on her staff some of the best food photogs in the country. Her stuff internet, magazine, tv looks good and tasty every damn time.
JerzeeTomato at 2:27PM on 01/12/09
A lot of the new energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs can make food look dreadful. Certain kinds of raw fish look spoiled or oxidized, and I once had a veal chop that was a perfect medium rare under sunlight but looked overcooked under the fluoros.
My favorite one was a restaurant that for a while had pinkish red lighting, and everyone tried to send back the grilled chicken because it looked pink and raw.
Benitowine at 5:18PM on 01/12/09
I think lighting can have alot to do with the attractiveness of the entree. I have to see a picture but I've gone to alot of restaurants that use the fluorescent bulbs. Gyenari in LA uses yellow lighting.
foodismyspeciality at 6:47PM on 01/12/09
I did not renew my BA subscription this year for the first time since 1970. Last January's spare sparse minimal and oh so green contents did not make me wish to go to the kitchen and make food. Over the year that I still received them, there were perhaps half a dozen recipes that had appeal and a shopping list that could be satisfied in a metropolitan area. When I have to order something obscure and wait for it, my hunger tends to subside. Wondering if I had made a dreadful error in not renewing, I hungrily opened the Jan. issue, read it cover to cover and threw it in the trash. They are no longer printing what I need. It is like losing an old and honored friend.
ocarol at 11:08AM on 01/13/09
We need Serious Eats magazine. We have a full staff already. Someone ask Ed if he wants to pitch it to a publisher. We have so much we cover on any given week I think we would have a winner. If freaking Rachel Ray can get a magazine why not us?
JerzeeTomato at 12:56PM on 01/13/09
I am in fact a professional photographer and while I am not a food/still life specialist I do a bit of food photography. Making food look good in a photograph is surprisingly hard to do. Combine that with the fact that editors are constantly trying to make the images in their publications look different and new means that there are a lot of short lived trends in food imagery that don't really work but are transitional.
For the past few years we have seen loads of images of food with either a very bright/blown out background or very little area of focus, or both. As the "molecular gastronomy" trend as changed our thoughts of what food should look like I'm pretty sure that the editors are trying to stop romanticizing gazpacho and want to show it in a more modern/conceptual way. The short of it is that they don't want to get stuck repeating themselves and want the photos to match to way that their readers relate to the subject matter.
I think that they are missing the point of being a food lover: we are in love with our food and thus we are romantic. Regardless of our techniques and the ideas behind our food we want to swoon at our dish. I'm just now finishing a lovely Neapolitan pizza and when it came I just sat here looking at it as the window light struck it's balsamic reduction. That's what we do! Right? (www.protospizza.com They make a very nice pie)
So don't freak. Magazine photo editors are most likely not foodies even if they work for Gourmet. This trend will pass as we tell them that they have disconnected with the hearts and passion of their readers.
Bunnyman at 3:19PM on 01/13/09
@JerzeeTomato: you're on
spiceweasel at 3:21PM on 01/13/09
I gave up my Gourmet subscribtion because the lighting was so dark and unappealing - it seemed to be directed for a noir film - not focussed, stubble-bearded cute guys, cracked china. Ugh. Guys, I'm here for the FOOD - and that means light, light, light.
kathall at 4:30PM on 01/13/09
Food is meant to be life-giving, but when it looks dead, cold, criminal, or dark (think "evil"-dark), it ceases to inspire desire, no matter how hungry I am.
Food mag editor types, I hope you're reading this.
moibec at 4:32PM on 01/13/09
@Jerzee - I love your idea!!!
brooke29 at 5:15PM on 01/13/09