Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Hmm. This illustration looks too good


(click on the image to make it bigger)

The top illustration actually looks much better than the muddy, unfocused, faded and above all sloppily presented photo at the Bad Photo Restaurant. It's the same people who inspired the last set of images - I'm finding them really useful for exploring the question of how should this have been done, so it would bring people to the restaurant, make everyone more money, and give us a neighborhood restaurant worth visiting.

In case you can't tell, they slopped a pile of spaghetti in a plate, glopped in an unknown amount of meatballs, then hosed it all down with a much less red and appealing sauce than this. Hint: blanch and shock the tomatoes, guys - and don't use that unripe crap that's not even a nice red color. If it was from a can, how come it was so pasty looking? Again, full frontal flash, worthy of a driver's license.

The lower plate liberates the meatballs from the sauce. The spaghetti is laid into the plate with a swirl, the sauce spooned down to leave some of the pasta exposed, and the meatballs carefully placed on top of the sauce. A garnish - basil or arugula makes the plate look fresh. Diffused light from anywhere but the front of the plate, preferably coming off a reflector to make the sauce shine, would create an image to make stomachs growl and the reservation phone ring.

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