Reflections on Images

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Accidental Hedonist published a thoughtful posting yesterday on the blogging of food images. Chefs and rstaurateurs should examine this issue as closely as publishing bloggers, since they are the group affected by food image blogging, and so Superchefblog shares our comment to Accidental Hedonist by reprinting here: As an author of previous and forthcoming books and as a publisher of a blog, I use images for both commercial and non-commercial publications and so have come to the following conclusions regarding the issue of blog publication of food images: (NB: This is not legal advice!) If you buy food at a restaurant and wish to photograph it, the food is yours to photograph -- the images for your own personal use, just as the food is. Were you to resell that food, you should cite where it comes from, just as any smart buyer should ask you (who are not a chef, let's assume) where the food comes from. To ensure regular sales, you would most likely try to enter into an agreement with the maker [chef] to get wholesale costs and thus lower your own market price. Of course, the chef or restaurant could refuse to deal with you on such a basis. If you publish a photo, whether commercially or not, you are using the photo publicly. In the case of a blog, which is effectively non-commercial (remember any advertising, however), I recommend that if you publish such a photo, you mark up the image with Name or Title and Alt which cites the food item's name and the restaurant or chef, that you hyperlink to the a web site of page by the chef or restaurant, and that you send a copy or hyperlink of the article to the chef or restaurant about what you have done. That tells the restaurant that you are crediting them for the image (ever see that term below an image "courtesy of"?), while it gives the chef or restaurant the opportunity to tell you, no, we do not want that image published in public [redundancy intended]. If they tell you no, you should respect their wishes, regardless of how courteously you cite them. After all, you probably did not tell them as you bought the food, hey, I'm going to photograph and publish this dish. Law -- especially commercial law -- may be verbally abstruse (see!), but if you can manage the language, it usually reflects commonsense -- it's just way over-seasoned with legalese. Clearly, this is a two-way street. Superchefblog proposes this standard operating procedure for food-image-publishing blogs, open to your comment. BTW, Superchefblog typically avoids this entire situation -- by requesting images from chefs or restaurants. Take the Turkish Coffee Chocolate image (above) from a recent aricle, provided courtesy of its maker, Steve Klc. Steve sent us the image to be used, and we emailed Steve with a hyperlink to the article when it was published (and, yes, we will be doing so again, as soon as this article has been published.) In fact, since Superchefblog's readership grew so much in 2005, we have made it our own SOP to email anyone cited in our articles -- a great service to them, since first and foremost they request changes (e.g., corrections). Overall, then, Superchefblog recommends that bloggers follow sound Journalism ethics -- here are two handy websites (and we welcome your further recommendations): Indiana University - School of Journalism - Ethics and the Society of Professional Journalists - Ethics. By following accepted ethics, there shoudl be no objections regarding food image blogging -- anymore than there can be for verbal comments (though even there, you the publisher would be safer with some short of written permission). How else can bloggers gain creibility while outperforming mainstream Journalism these days? Previous articles: Christmas Desserts: iSi Whip & Recipes Jamie Oliver on Vodafone Live! Emeril Lagasse: iPod ReciPods One "Epi To Go," Please! Emeril Lagasse Lays Apple iPod Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, Food and Drink, Food Blogs, Ethics, Carole Greenwood --> back to superchefblog