@FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website
2026-09-17 23:59 UTC
That's a bit harsh. A lot of the pictures you see on menus are not what they cooked in the kitchen. Because cooked food doesn't look sexy enough. Or only when it's hot and then steam coming off it makes it look worse in the image. So they use glue to gloss things up, replace entire ingredients (e.g. motor oil for maple syrup), etc. Food photography is serious business. And expensive.
Replies (1)
-
@FellowEnt@sh.itjust.works 2026-09-18 07:07
Commercial photographer here, shot for big brands and independents, with some super-fucking-expensive stylists. Never used anything like that, with the exception of coffee brands using whipped face cream instead of edible cream because it lasts much longer on set and they don’t give a fuck. Brands like McDonalds have learned from being sued, and document the whole process, weighing each ingredient so they can prove it’s real. The reason it looks fake as fuck is that they spend ~30 mins assembling one burger with tweezers and pins and hand-selected pieces of salad etc, syringes to pipe the sauce exactly where they want it etc.