Requesting your feedback on a client-provided food porn shot (it's not one of mine) [View all]

[Miles Archer]

You may have seen two "food porn" posts I did recently from my new client, one of entrees and the other of desserts. In most cases, the food was plated very well and I got what I felt were some pretty decent shots.

My client sent me the photo above a few days ago. I have a few issues I'll list, but I'm more interested in hearing what you folks have to say.

1). This is a "sampler" plate from their menu which features lasagna, chicken parm, one meatball, and one sausage. Problem is that with the sauce and cheese covering, the only thing I can clearly identify on the plate is the meatball.

2). There is spaghetti on the plate, which is not in the menu description for this item, so I don't know if there's spaghetti AND lasagna or if they substituted spaghetti FOR lasagna.

3). Technical issues (like I said, it's not my photo)...I always center the plates, because I hate clipped edges like this. lack of symmetry, for me, is a badly composed shot. Strand of spaghetti on the rim of the plate, not good. I would put the lasagna, chicken parm, meatball and sausage on the plate with NO sauce, add enough sauce to each so that at least half of the item was still visible, and then top it with enough cheese to make it look plentiful but still allowing people to see what was under the cheese and sauce. One little dot of something in the sauce on top of the spaghetti...probably a sliver of garlic...but if I had been there taking the photo, I would have plucked it off for symmetry's sake.

Your thoughts?