I chuckled when I read your comment alluding to the difficulty to shoot food. A buddy of mine had to do a shoot for an agency on a job for a food company. My buddy did all of the model shots, but it seems that the ad agencies always bring in a "food designer" on photo shoots. I suppose I should not have been surprised, but I couldn't believe what was done to enable the photographer to shoot the "food".
Just a few examples:
The breakfast cereal was in a bowl with "milk" which was really Elmer's glue thinned with water. Actual milk apparently appears too blue (think of skim milk) so it is not used.
Minestrone soup was poured from a can into a deep soup dish filled with clear marbles. The marbles supported the vegetables in the soup to make them appear to be far more abundent that they really are. When you look at the photo, it appears that the bowl is brimming with veggies. NOT!
Ice cubes in a glass are plastic since it is easier to get a clear plastic cube than it is to get a clear ice cube.
And, best of all - the turkey was cooked about 3/4 through and then "basted" with a combination of brown food coloring of some sort mixed with shellac. Yes - shellac. Made the outside of the bird mouth wateringly brown and shiny and crispy looking. UGH.
I guess all of us have seen the promo photos of a Big Mac or a Whopper piled high with the patties, the gorgeous green lettuce, the perfect red tomato and the gleaming white onion slices. Looks to be 6" thick. Then you unwrap the squished down real thing with day old lettuce, 1/2 green tomatoes and unbalanced patty stack.
I guess that is how the ad world works in general, huh?
