Comment by cperciva
3 years ago
I'm inclined to give food photographers a pass on the "non-food ingredients" thing. Most of these fall into the category of "make something which looks like food but lasts longer" -- fake ice cream which doesn't melt, fake milk which doesn't soak into cereal, fake syrup which doesn't soak into pancakes, et cetera. It's not a matter of making something which looks better than real food -- it's just that photoshoots have a unique need when it comes to how long the food lasts. If you're eating pancakes, they should never stay on your plate for the amount of time a professional photographer would want to spend with them.
Sure, nothing against the practice, food photographers do what is needed to do to obtain a good result, it was only to explain why often times what you actually cook looks quite different from the photos, a part is to be attributed to (less) capabilities of the cook, but a part comes from the sheer fact that the photo does not represent the actual output of the recipe.