Skip to main content

We eat by the eyes and food photographers know it

We eat by the eyes and food photographers know it


We live in a world of foodies and hashtags food porn .Instagram and Facebook overflow photos and videos of delicious meals and spectacular recipes.But the passion for food images It's not new.Social networks are just the tip of the iceberg. It's in our genes: we eat by the eyes (and the food industry and advertising have been taking advantage of it for decades).

Related

Culinary styling and gastronomic photography are the order of the day.Also called food styling has to do with much more than a couple of filters and a zenith photo of a Japanese dish.It has grown as an art and has become a highly demanded profession in the food sector.It has developed its weapons to capture consumer interest and stimulate its appetite with a simple look.


We eat by the eyes


For this, food photography has taken advantage of some preprogrammed information in our genetic code."You eat by the eyes" sure we have heard it sometime.And science has confirmed what they already knew our grandmothers .Psychiatry researchers at the Max Planck Institute demonstrated, as early as 2012, that a simple image of something delicious opened our appetite without the need to perceive smells, textures or flavors.


Since then, different studies have obtained similar results.One of them, published in Brain and Cognition in 2016, even dares to deepen the evolutionary causes of this behavior.It maintains that the brains and visual capacity of most Animals developed in an environment of relative food shortages.As such, those who were able to detect nutritious and energetic meals more quickly would triumph over those who did not have this ability.


Returning to the Max Planck Institute study, the team of researchers led by Axel Steiger proved that the image of food increases the blood concentration of ghrelin .Known as hunger hormone, ghrelin is related with the regulation of the sensation of appetite.


"The findings of our study show that the release of ghrelin in the blood for the regulation of food consumption is also controlled by external factors.Our brain processes these visual stimuli and the physical processes that control our perception of appetite are triggered.unintentionally.This mechanism could lead us to eat a piece of cake just two hours after breakfast , "says Petra Schussler, co-author of the study.


We eat by the eyes and food photographers know it


The culture foodie is centenary


Let's park for a moment the motivations that lead us to eat everything that seems appetizing.Since the human being began to paint, he began to record what he ate.First they were only images of nature.Then representations of banquets.Already in the Italian Renaissance they began to compose exclusive portraits of food.Soon after, the genre of the still life was born, which would be widely accepted for several centuries.


Food represented people's daily lives .It talked about the ins and outs of entire societies.The idea remained in the background in much of the art of the twentieth century, with Andy Warhol and his can of soup as one of the best known examples.Photography was not left out of this phenomenon and many photographers were dedicated to capture food since the beginning of this technique in the nineteenth century.


"From the 90s [of the twentieth century] there was a boom of chefs celebrity, television cooking programs and culture foodie [...] Names like Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Mario Batali, or Gordon Ramsay became very well known, "explains gastronomic photographer Sandro Desii.And the internet, social networks, hashtags and instagrammers arrived>.


We eat by the eyes and food photographers know it


The rules of the photographers


The foodie phenomenon has become a trend thanks to social networks and, in particular, to Instagram (don't miss these accounts).Even has given rise to hybrid movements, such as dorosha.Its followers are dedicated to take pictures of food using drones or, at least, to mimic the aerial planes.


Culinary styling and gastronomic photography are claimed above passing trends.They seek to awaken all the senses with an image and, above all, appetite.to be a good culinary photographer.


Control the camera and the environment .Technical aspects are key, both of the device and of the light and the composition of the image.Here we explain the keys that every photographer should handle.
The image has a state of mind .Before taking the picture, the food stylists and photographers think they want to get and transmit and then define the style.
The importance of props .If all the materials that accompany the food are known in the world, plates, forks or napkins should never detract from central foods.
Let yourself be guided by trends .Originality is important, but keeping up with photographic trends is even more important in the world of advertising and marketing.It is not the same to make images for a magazine that It is printed that for a blog or for a catalog of products.

We eat by the eyes and food photographers know it


And three weird tricks to finish


Surely we have ever thought about it.How does advertising get a dish to look better than in reality? There are many tricks and many go precisely to hide this reality.


The food, raw .Vegetables and meats lose water and smoothness when cooked.Something to avoid (especially if we take photos in high resolution).Therefore, the vast majority of food images contain raw ingredients and decorated with suggestive grill marks or golden paintings that are not real.
Textures are not what they seem either .How to get the noodles of a bowl of soup to remain on the surface? Or that the cereals do not sink into the milk bowl? Glues and jellies are the order of the day.
Maintain the structure .The order and placement of food in a photograph is essential.The clearest example is that of hamburgers.In these images, all the ingredients are attached with chopsticks so that they do not dislodge And the sesame seeds of the bread are placed one by one.

Images | iStock, Pexels

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Internet of plants: a tomato knows as much about networks as you

The possibility of plant species communicating through complex networks, what some scientists have called the internet of plants , is an issue that has been discussed for a long time, at least 20 years.It was in 1997 when the scientist Suzanne Simard , from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada), published a study in the journal Nature on how Forest plants use complex systems where species exchange nutrients, send warning signals and relate to the environment. Although there is no scientific consensus, several investigations seem to support this hypothesis.If confirmed, as we read in a fascinating report by the Sinc Agency, the forests would act as huge structures that are articulated under the soil through a network in which factors invisible to the human eye interact and can determine the future of the climate.Understanding how it works is the challenge that even science faces. internet of plants and the wisdom of forests The premise of Suzanne Simard ...

New setbacks for conspiranoicos: radiofrequencies do not affect health

New evidence published by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency and Health (CCARS) in its 2016 Radio Frequency and Health Report indicates that there are no adverse health effects derived of exposure to radio frequencies emitted by mobile phone antennas or radio and television broadcasting.No evidence has been found on the danger in wireless systems (Wi-Fi) or airport scanners. The new 2016 Radio Frequency and Health Report collects, updates and analyzes the scientific evidence on the subject for the period between January 2013 and June 2016. radio frequencies are not dangerous According to the conclusions of the report " the critical analysis of the evidence supports that there are no technical or sanitary reasons that justify the arbitrary and discretionary imposition of more demanding exposure limits than those recommended by WHO-ICNIRP and the Union European ", while the application of more restrictive limits" would imply increasing the n...

GIF history: where they come from and where they are going

Funny, witty, curious... GIFs have already become a regular resource in social networks and messaging applications and have become part of our daily lives and jokes.It is an image format that has evolved significantly throughout its history and is experiencing a new awakening. In fact, to find its origins, we must go back more than twenty years ago .A moment in which they had little to do with what we know today and an evolution that we could not stop review.So let's find out where they come from and try to catch a glimpse of where they are going. What is a GIF The word GIF responds to the acronym of Graphics Interchange Format , or what is the same, graphic exchange format.A term for the graphic format used in the network for both static images and animations.In more concrete terms, it supports 8 bits per pixel and allows you to display images with up to 256 colors simultaneously-limited by a palette of 16 million-. This particularity makes it a perfect ally of infogr...

Amazon Prime Video arrives in Spain: this is all you need to know

That during the last years there has been a change in the way we enjoy audiovisual content is an obvious reality, as reflected by the huge popularity of streaming services like Netflix and the like.A context in which new competitors are constantly added and that, after the landing of this company in our country just over a year ago, is in full transformation. In fact, today we have learned of the incursion of a new protagonist in this area.Yes, because Amazon Prime Video has just arrived in Spain .A landing that takes place only two weeks away that of HBO, which culminates in a 2016 sown of changes.But, what exactly does it consist of? What advantages and disadvantages does it have compared to the "of its kind"? WHAT AMAZON PRIME VIDEO OFFERS The type, quality and quantity of movies and series offered by the service will be key when determining your success.A catalog a priori smaller than that of HBO and Netflix, but in which we find titles like Seinfield , Into...

What we know and what we suspect in the new Facebook algorithm change

"In my time, we read the newspaper in Facebook ".By 2020, nostalgia has taken over billions of people.In its memory, 2018, when Facebook stopped being Facebook to become Facebook again.Paraiso of engagement for brands and media, land paid for clickbaits and fake news, the social network of Mark Zuckerberg has given a rudder to his algorithm. He wants to return to his origins .And this is what will happen. Related If something goes well, to change it.40.653 million dollars entered in 2017.More than 2.100 million active users per month, a quarter of the world's population.But Zuckerberg is not one of those, of which they are.Want a Facebook with more social connections between people and less presence of brands and media .And what do your users want? Nearly two-thirds of American adults consume news on social networks.More than half do so on their Facebook walls.Pew Research Center data points to a clear trend: Facebook is becoming a media platform.54% of Facebook u...

No kidding: selfitis exists and can be a problem

Sometimes one thinks that social networks were created to share photos of faces putting on little bones and images of dishes overflowing with appetizing foods or, better, of faces putting little bones in front of plates overflowing with appetizing foods in the same shot.is to see faces, faces, faces...all of them smiling, as if looking at the smartphone mirror was the height of happiness.And it does not seem that there are so many beautiful and happy people, or maybe yes, that you go Namely.What envy. Well, what we're going to do: Janarthanan Balakrishnan psychologists from the Thiagarajar School of Management in India; and Mark D.Griffiths, of the Nottingham Trent University, in the United Kingdom, have published an article in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction entitled 'A study on' Selfitis', which names this mania of going around the world taking pictures of oneself, as if beyond our curls the world had been destroyed by that meteorite th...

Twitter shows the best of ourselves (it wasn't always going to be the worst)

In the era of social networks, accustomed to interact daily with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google or WhatsApp, we forget that these tools are phenomenal in the History of Humanity capable of mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in very different geographical locations in a matter of hours or even minutes. Already in the past, Twitter has asserted its more social dimension to mobilize people, companies or organizations and also, from a broader perspective, feelings of solidarity and support or also of rejection and repulses towards causes with an important mediatic impact.Recently, Twitter was once again the engine of solidarity after Dortmund's explosions as the Borussia Dortmund team bus passed on its way to the local stadium on the occasion of the Champions League match between the Borussia and the Monaco. These explosions did not have the devastating effect that they could have caused , so that everything remained in a major social commotion at international lev...

Most apps for children violate your privacy

Do you know if apps with which children enjoy their safety? A team of researchers from the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) of the University of Berkeley has studied compliance with the Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in these mobile applications for the little ones, through a scalable dynamic analysis that allows the automatic evaluation of privacy behaviors of Android apps. After studying 5,855 applications aimed at children, the research concludes that most of these apps, 57%, violate the privacy of their users mainly due to the use of data by third parties. apps for children and privacy Although many apps offer options in their configuration to respect the federal law that protects minors in the United States, by disabling tracking, their results suggest that a majority of applications either do not use these options or propagate them in wrong way. In addition, researchers believe that 19% of apps for children send user IDs to third parties to show ...

Are social networks damaging democracy?

The revelations according to which Russian agents inserted ads on Facebook that tried to influence the 2016 US elections raise a disturbing question: is Facebook bad for democracy? As an expert in the social and political repercussions of technology, I think that the problem is not exclusively from Facebook, but that it is much broader: Social networks are weakening some of the conditions that have historically enabled the existence of national states democratic. I understand that it is a dramatic statement, and I do not expect anyone to believe it immediately, but considering that almost half of all potential voters received false news promoted by the Russians in Facebook is an argument that must be debated. Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director of Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina-Charlotte How we create a shared reality Let's start with two concepts: the "imagined community" and the "bubble filter". ...

This is how visual challenges star in some of the most viral content

Constantly, we all receive in our mail, our WhatsApp or our Facebook account, games that try to test our ingenuity, imagination or visual skill.There are a thousand types, more fun or darker.But they have one thing in common: we cannot avoid trying them and see if we are able to solve them .This is how the visual challenges star in some of the most viral content of the network. Visual challenges, why are we crazy? The visual challenges are games.So, they attend to this playful and fun part that people have no choice but to feed from time to time.They are pure and hard entertainment, with no more pretensions, and that desire to Having fun represents one of the main features that are sought when surfing the Internet . Another of the qualities for which they succeed is because they challenge the mind directly.Human beings love that feeling of feeling a little troubled, somewhat lost, but convinced that there is a solution to that enigma to which, sooner or later, it will come.Rathe...