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Prof. Malcolm Campbell Marwa Alsalboookh English 1102 11 Mar 2014 Food Photography: Art or Deception? What is a deceptive ad? People rarely ask themselves about why they buy things that they don't need. Simply, because the voices they hear charmed them, the scent they smell attracted them, and the ads they see deceived them. Did you ever wonder if the ice-cream commercial that you see on T.V is real? Or maybe, just maybe, it's made of anything but ice and cream? Did it ever cross your mind that these goods that you are buying are not real? That is what we now call consumer deception. Some companies, famous ones, do things they should not do just to get benefits from the buyers. You'll be wondering how a normal person could know all that about companies that would never show their success secret. Calm your mind, all the answers are in front of you, but it needs you to ask yourself questions in order to see the truth. You and I, and every person in this planet go shopping, for food, clothes, and other necessities. But most of us spend our money on things that we don't need; why? Why spend money on three kinds of a particular item while you only need one? Simply, people get fascinated by ads. Instead of needing, their mind transfers to wanting. Companies have a huge role in that, however, that does not mean all companies deceive costumers. If a company had a really good product to sell; this product met all of the requirements that fit the perfect product and the company made effective ads, then it does not mean that the company is deceptive. Moreover, false advertisement is cruel

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and extremely dishonest with consumers. Hence, food photography and perfect well-shown commercials are part of it, too. All companies purpose is to show public that their message or point of the product that they are selling. But what if they send it in the wrong way? The exact opposite message will be sent to millions of billions of people and it will be translated into millions of meanings. Companies should be on the right track in order to be successful in their business, and these successful achievements are followed by aspects such as advertisement and so on. Successful companies like TAZO's Tea, Apple Devices, and the cars company Toyota are all examples of companies who started from the very bottom and build up high quality products and magnificent ads to show what they had been doing so far. On the one hand, not all creators or even founders think the same. The reason why successful businessmen are successful is their honesty and optimistic mind. Undoubtedly, creative thinkers can lead their faith to be achievers, and then it will become a wealthy and healthy business. On the other hand, some companies sell harmful products to the public, and they do that by promoting these products with persuasive words; for example, you would see in a typical turkey commercial a turkey! But is it the same one you see in your kitchen? Golden-brown roasted turkey is just an illusion. You may think it's delicious, but the rough fact, it's been manipulated with cars oil, spray deodorant and brown shiny polish. When consumers are being brainwashed by companies, they shop for specific thing and they leave the market with everything but what they were looking for. That called the ads affection on the human brain; and it plays a huge role on the human brain. Introducing the idea of a healthy ad might be unclear for some people. In fact, it mean how a company shows the ad; the way they make it if it is a meaningful idea and isolated from all of the unwanted puffery words and unfair pictures. In order to make food look so good, you'll

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need a food stylist; they are like make-up artists. It's their job to make the food that you see in commercials look so tempting. But when you find out how they do it, you just might lose your appetite. It's unfair and unhealthy in the most possible way. Food stylists and photographers use many tricks to make food look delicious for advertisements and cookbooks. For instance, milk on cereal might be replaced with white glue. That way the cereal doesnt get soggy. Or lemon juice might be added to a banana to keep it from turning brown. Food is basically like cut flowers, says food stylist Lisa Cherkasky. Its amazing how fast it dries up and shrinks. ("Food That Fools You", kids.nationalgeographic.com) Competitions between companies had a serious role in the food photography field. Most companies will advertise their product in a very fancy way, giving the costumer the illusion of luxuriousness and deliciousness of the food. There are a lot of examples show that companies compete with each other by showing costumers their best photographic delicious food that cannot be resisted, like McDonald, KFC, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Dominos pizza, and Pizza Hut. Most food restaurants/stores are next to each other, if you give it a thought you would realize that all fast food restaurants exist in the same place, coincidence? Guess not. You have all these options and very irresistible smell and pictures all gathered in the same place. The differences between home cook and what the stylist present the food for commercials, cookbooks, magazines is that it was made carefully and artfully arranged to show the good part of the food. The actual food photography can take place in a studio under controlled lighting conditions, or under natural light like the sun or the moonlight. The light, background and setting is carefully prepared so as to present the food in an as attractive way as possible. There's nothing wrong with that, it is amazingly creative to create a new ideas to enhance the beauty of an advertisement. Sometimes it includes some kinds of supplies that

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change the shape and the substance of the materiel for advertising purposes. Deceptive advertising is the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. As advertising has the potential to persuade people into commercial transactions that they might otherwise avoid many governments around the world use regulations to control false, deceptive or misleading advertising (False Advertising). What if food photography didn't exist? If the food in the ads wouldn't be so tempting for you to want. In a very different angle, food photography should be considered an art "Because it contains all of the elements of design that make a striking image," says Ron Goldman, photography instructor. He also stated that color, texture, pattern, line, shape, and form are all there, yet it seems almost impossible to correctly capture these elements in a way that makes the viewer NEED to eat what they are seeing You eat first with your eyes, then your nose, then your mouth," states a Chinese saying. In order to get the most possible breathtaking picture you'll need to follow few tips or tricks. There are two aspects and each one of them is divided into few sections. First, the technology aspect, the first section is having good light. When it comes to food and styling, you'll need to understand that light is the very critical part in photographing food. No matter how wonderfully the plate is prepared, it will always need good light and possibly a little bit of darkness. The second section is angles and lenses of the camera, your selection of a good angle of the plate will be professional. Getting creative and taking pictures from different angles till you hit it right. Lenses play a big role in this, each lens has different value, you could make the food image look even closer, in the middle, full image, or part of it showing. Also, arranging the food into specific order is important as well. The second aspect is enhancement and styling. Now this could be weird, but definitely give a better result than normal food, but perhaps with little enhancement, or a lot of

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enhancement if needed. This aspect involves using tools with food to make it look so appealing when photographed. Haje Jan Kamps is a food stylist and she wrote an article about the tricks that stylist use to make the dish looks just perfect; its called The Dirty Tricks of Food Photography. She said in her article that sometimes bizarre tools of the food photography trade that transform fresh baked brownies and juicy crown roasts into science fair projects masquerading as culinary delights. Food is among the more difficult subjects for photographers. Its a work of an artist, yet it still deception to consumers if it was advertised. Further, hot foods cool, moist foods dry out, frozen foods melt, vegetables wilt, and fruit turns brown. There is specific supplies designers use to food photography and it includes car oil, spray deodorant and brown shiny polish. In addition, these needed supplies to accomplish the food photography feats are usually found in: hardware, grocery, fabric, drug, and art supply stores. First, blowtorch, for browning the edges of raw hamburger, pink beef and hot dogs. Second, cars oil, for unphotogenic syrups. Third, is glycerin, to make seafood look like it was just caught that is for morning and spritzing lettuce salads, giving them the picked and fresh look. Fourth, cotton balls, which when it gets soaked and microwaved, it performs quite nicely illusion of steaming-hot foods. Fifth, spray deodorant, which gives grapes that desirable frosty veneer. Sixth, mashed potatoes, they put it instead of ice-cream since it melts, it gives it icy delicious shape. Could food photography be harmful? In the social media life, its common to share tastylooking culinary creations before eating. But new research from Brigham Young University (BYU) warns that looking at too many images of food could actually make it less enjoyable to eat. (Food Pictures Could Be Harmful To Your Appetite, Researchers Claim.) According to co-author Ryan Elder, assistant Professor of Marketing, PhD in marketing The phenomenon is a type of sensory boredom and it could cause people inundated with Instagram or Pinterest

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images to become tired of a particular type of flavor (salads, hamburgers, pasta, etc.) without even consuming the food. He also states that In a way, youre becoming tired of that taste without even eating the food... youve kind of moved on. You dont want that taste experience anymore, he added. He and his colleague Jeff Larson found that this social net work overexposure to food imagery can increase a persons satiation, or decreasing enjoyment level that comes with repeated consumption. As part of their research, the investigators recruited 232 individuals to examine and then review photos of food. In one study, half of those people looked at 60 images of sweet foods such as cake and chocolates, while the remaining study participants reviewed 60 pictures of salty snacks such as pretzels, chips and French fries. In the end, the people who had looked at the salty foods ended up enjoying the peanuts less, even though they never looked at peanuts, just at other salty foods, they added. The researchers say the subjects satiated on the specific sensory experience of saltiness. Larson, who along with co-authors Elder and Joseph Redden of the University of Minnesota reported the studys findings in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, said that people who want to ensure that they enjoy their culinary experience should avoid looking at too many pictures of food. A confession of a food stylist called Susie Anderson, in her article Confession of a Food Stylist: Poop Freeze and Other Tricks of The Trade. stated that "professional food stylists who are not styling food for consumption is something called "poop freeze." Yes, this is an aerosol that is sprayed on dog poop to make it easier to pick up off the ground. In food styling, this spray essentially freezes the food, making it easier to capture without any melting or other disruption. It doesn't sound delicious, but it helps to make the food look totally appetizing!" Food photography is unlimited path. Techniques are invented everyday with unexpected tools. The art of food photography can divide into more than one path, starting with galleries and

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ending with advertisements. Stylist job is to make food look delicious to people and it's as hard as doctor's job, well, not that hard, but it requires a lot of attention, time, and carefulness. Sometimes food stylist differ from food photographer; food stylist make food look so appealing with all possible tools that he/she can use. While food photographer makes sure that the dish/plate is perfectly designed for the photo shoot, and sometimes both jobs are linked together. Why the huge difference between food ads and real food? A question asked by many random individuals and yet the answer is unknown for some. The local ABC Eyewitness News tries to find the answer since consumer reports has gotten so many complaints about what they eat does not appear in what they see. The news staff made a side by side comparison; secret shoppers were sent with a photo studio in a van to seven fast-food chains, stated as follows, Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's Quiznos, Subway, Taco Bell and Wendy's. Their goal was to compare what you see with what you're served. Judi Orlick, a professional food stylist, shares her part of the story When you're taking that photograph, we want to highlight and feature all of the elements in that sandwich. So what we're doing is we are building that to play up to the camera, and appeal to your senses and to make your eyes hungry." The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising, says it hasn't pursued any cases regarding deceptive photos of food. An FTC spokesperson says actions are unlikely in cases of inexpensive products that consumers can easily evaluate. (Consumer Reports: Comparing fast food meals, abclocal.go.com) Whereby, the Federal Trade Commission has posted in their website FTC policy statement letter to John D. Dingell, Chairman Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives; in response regarding the Commission's enforcement policy against deceptive acts or practices. The letter states Section 5 of the FTC Act declares unfair or

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deceptive acts or practices unlawful. Section 12 specifically prohibits false ads likely to induce the purchase of food, drugs, devices or cosmetics. Section 15 defines a false ad for purposes of Section 12 as one which is "misleading in a material respect. FTC intends to address the concerns that have been raised about the meaning of deception, and thereby attempt to provide a greater sense of certainty as to how the concept will be applied. In order to call make a case in deceptive ads, it has to meet these criteria. The statement also indicates that certain practices are unlikely to deceive consumer that are acting reasonably. Thus, the Commission generally will not bring advertising cases based on subjective claims (taste, feel, appearance, smell) because it is based on the consumer understanding choice to purchase. In that case, food photography is more likely to determine as an art than being deceptive. Nonetheless, it is slightly considered deceptive in some few cases, but no governmental commission stated anything against it. Food photography whether it's an art or not, it will still showing everywhere we go, cinemas, restaurants, television and so on. It's a remaining art just like other legendry advertisements that we see in T.V or streets. Photographers, sometimes, use uneatable kinds of elements to enhance the shape and the look of the food in order to get a better shoot. What we see in the image is real food mixed with other elements and that is why it gives another idea to our understanding of art. The aim that food photographers seek is the plate they design and shoot, other than that is companies' business. A word to beginner photographers, take your cameras and make a historical food art of what you shoot now because you'll never know in 200 years, you might be a one decent legendary photographer.

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Work Cited
Abraham, Tamara. "'I'm Going to Take a Lot of Pictures on Thanksgiving': Martha Stewart Remains Unapologetic over 'gross' Food Photos." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 26 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. Anderson, Susie. "Confessions of a Food Stylist: Poop Freeze and Other Tricks of the Trade." AOL Jobs.7 Jan. 2011. Web. 01 Apr. 2014. "Consumer Reports: Comparing Fast Food Meals." ABC Owned Television Stations. WABC-TV/DT, 07 Jan. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. "Food Pictures Could Be Harmful To Your Appetite, Researchers Claim." Instagram Pictures Can Eventually Ruin Your Appetite. RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports, 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. "FTC Policy Statement on Deception." FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, 14 Oct. 1983. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. Kamps, Haje Jan. "The Dirty Tricks of Food Photographers." Photocritic. photocritic., 14 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. McCollum, Sean. "Food That Fools You." National Geographic. National Geographic Kids Magazine, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.