I’ve seen some bad food photography in my day, but none compares to what’s on the Safeway blog. You’d think a business whose model is to sell food would deem it important to make the food look appetizing.
I don’t want to embed any images because they’re really gross, but here are a few examples to click on (if you want to):
• Rancher’s Reserve Tri Tip
• Cherry Crunch
• Chicken Wing Dip
These posts were written (and the photos were presumably taken) by “Kate”, a Safeway employee and mother of three.
Forward these to James Lileks. Maybe he can get a head start on “Gallery of Regrettable Food, Part 3″.
Oh god oh god OH GOD. This is really gross. I am sure she had the best of intentions, but that is SO unappetizing! Too bad!
Safeway having a blog could be a really good idea, if it had some strategy around it….and some restrictions as well! Maybe I’ll email them…. Thanks for sharing! (I think….)
I’m pretty sure you can treat that Cherry Crunch with pencillin.
I was going to vomit, but my gag suppression kicked in for fear that it might look like the Chicken Wing Dip.
Hey, it’s hard to make good food photos. These don’t add much to the blogs, but at least they aren’t misleading, like professionally done shots. Think shaving cream instead of whipped cream on a sundae or Pam on the outside of a glass to represent condensation.
I award sincerity points.
“I’m pretty sure you can treat that Cherry Crunch with pencillin.”
Sir, you are incorrect. You *make* penicillin *from* Cherry Crunch. ;-)
These are repulsive
I agree with Akitist – I tend to think that SWAY shoulda not let this go up, and that you can do better as an amateur, but it’s definitely not misleading.
Somewhere in the middle, but overall – yeah, gross looking (I’ve done much better as an amateur).
Pretty brutal, but not much worse than some of the food photography on here. Search “Baked Quinoa Adobado” and tell me you would eat it.
I think you guys are a bunch of bitches. If it wasn’t Safeway, I think you would have just let this all go as yet another bad set of food photos.
That said, Safeway is totally lost on the Web. I’m surprised they even have a blog!
It was a huge relief to me when I found out that there is an actual career path called a “food stylist” and I could stop wondering why my finished products rarely look like the foodie glamour shots in magazines and cookbooks. The trick used by the pro’s that really got my attention is adding Plaster of Paris to cake frosting to get those intricate swirls and peaks you just can’t get with plain old butter cream. Yum!!!
AIUI (and I could be misinformed) in commercial food photography the Feds prohibit the use of anything that would render the photographed food inedible or is not food itself. So, no glass marbles in the bottom of soup bowls to make veg soup look thicker, no hairspray in cooked chicken. et al.
That reminds me of a claim I once handled for a large Mexican restaurant chain where a server accidentally grabbed the model of the fried ice cream (inexplicably being stored in the freezer next to real ones) and gave it to a customer. Despite the model being made completely of clay, the customer still ate 4 spoonfuls before determining that something was amiss.