‘Camera Eats First’ is the behavior and global phenomenon of people taking photos of their meals with digital or smartphone cameras before they eat, mostly followed by uploading the photos to the social media. The term refers to how people feed their cameras first by taking photos before eating themselves. It derives from professional food photography while the behavior of the ‘Camera Eats First’ is generally for personal use such as keeping photographic food diaries instead of commercial purposes. It can also be referred as online food photography, food porn and photogenic food.
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Background
One reason for the rise of the ‘Camera Eats First’ is the rise of digital convenience. The global participation in social media is on continual surge with the advancement in technology and commonness of digital devices that serve as mediums for social media. The veteran food photographer of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Saveur magazine Dave Hagerman mentioned that Instagram, one of the social media that has the most posts of ‘Camera Eats First’ photos, provides a way for people to share and indulge their common obsession of food globally, thus encouraging taking pictures of food for personal use. More importantly, keeping a photogenic food diary is being treated as a form of self representation, showing who they are from what they eat in accordance to the quote of “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”, by the French philosopher and gourmand Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825.
Prevalence
The 'Camera Eats First' phenomenon is becoming more common all over the world with the emergence of smartphone and social media. After taking photos of their food, people will usually share the photos on social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. According to Webstagram, there are more than 180 million photos with the hashtag #food on Instagram currently. Other hashtags such as #foodporn and #foodie are often added to the photos. It is estimated that 90 new photos hash-tagged #foodporn are uploaded to Instagram every minute. The phenomenon is especially more prevalent among the younger generation. According to a survey done by News Limited, “54 per cent of 18-24 year olds have taken a photo of their food while eating out, while 39 per cent have posted it somewhere online. This compares with only 5 per cent of over-50s who say they share food snaps on forums such as Facebook and Twitter.”
Increased connection and satisfying psychological needs
Through sharing food photos on social media, users can form connections with other people and strengthen interpersonal bonds. Food is always a community event and a bonding experience which can bridge the gap between people and share joy. Thus, sharing food photos also acts as a "social glue" to gather people together to participate in each other's eating experiences. Through the sharing, a private dining experience is turned into a communal bonding activity. People can communicate and share their emotions with others, for example, happiness in a party. In addition, people can satisfy the psychological needs of “belongingness and love” and “esteem” according to the Maslow's hierarchy of needs as they can share their experiences and show off what they are eating.
Business opportunities
Sharing food photos can facilitate people’s obsession with food, and help promote restaurants. Others' sharing of food photo can be a visual pull that will subconsciously alert people to check out new restaurants. Carmel Winery, a restaurant in Israel, gained $400,000 from free promotion by food photos on social media and successfully boosted its sales by 13% owing to the help of “Camera Eats First”. On the other hand, some chefs in Hong Kong would take "food porn" photos and post them on social media because they thought that the "Camera Eats First" phenomenon served as a channel for them to collect feedback from customers which is a vital information for them to make improvement on their dishes.
Making food taste better
According to a study mentioned in Bit of News, taking photos of pleasurable food, such as cakes, before eating it can increase the savoring — "the increased anticipation built up from taking photos of the food made it taste better." If people don't take a photo, they may even feel something is missing from the savoring experience.
Infringement of chefs' intellectual property
The 'Camera Eats First' behavior was banned in some French restaurants as diners may infringe upon chefs'intellectual property. Some French chefs criticized that this behavior would ruin the surprise of future diners as they might have seen the photos of dishes shared on the internet before coming to the restaurant. Diners posting the photos on social media may give rise to intellectual property problems that other chefs may copy the ideas and presentation of the plates which are the creative elements contributed by the original chefs.
Impoliteness and worsening relationships
The "Camera Eats First" behavior may be considered as an impolite table manner. When diners photograph the food, they may place too much emphasis on the appearance of the food and try to capture the food at its best angle by rearranging tables. It may disrupt other people around and spoil their enjoyment of the meal. They may also leave their partners in a state of hunger and impatience. On the other hand, while people are busy photographing their food and sharing them online, they will have less time to communicate with their friends and family. One of the functions of eating—enabling families and friends to gather together and enhance intimacy—is lost. The 'Camera Eats First" behavior may result in worsening relationships and weakening connection with others in contrast with the positive effect mentioned.