A delicious smoked salmon sandwich
Yesterday, the New York Times had an article about people who obsessively photograph every (or nearly every) meal they have. A couple of years ago, I tried taking photos of my meals while living in Spain. I was posting them to another blog I had at the time, but found the chore of taking out the camera and disrupting the meal as too intrusive. The people featured in this article don’t have those same concerns, although, they sometimes grapple with other people’s qualms about it. But aside from how you feel about “phood photos” (that should be the term, right?), what is undeniable is their dramatic growth online and sharing on social networks.
In the article, a man named Javi, has shot every meal he’s had for the past 5 years, over 9000 phootos (another new term?) in all. Another has shot and shared her meals online with family and friends, eliciting comments and cravings, since 1997. Flickr has a group called “I Ate This,” that has over 300,000 images from more than 19,000 contributors. And I still check out Scanwiches every now and again to see what delicious sandwich someone has posted that day.
In a previous post, I discussed the rise of Foodspotting.com, which emphasizes the importance of a particular dish at a restaurant. All of this affirms the relative acceptability, growth, and ubiquity of food profiling online. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to encourage your customers and communities to upload and share their phood photos.
Tags: flickr, food candy, foodies, foodspotting, grange hall media, I Ate This, new york times, phood photos, scanwiches, Social Media