JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

kovert's past comments

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  kovertSep. 04, 2011 - 10:16AM JST

  I am neither a woman nor am I Japanese, but I take pics of my food sometimes. For me it all started some 16 or 17 years ago when I was working at an ad agency. I took it upon myself to review all of the local restaurants that people in the office could go to for lunch. So everyday when I went to lunch I would bring my digital camera, and if we went to a new place or I tried a new dish I would grab some photos. I built a small website on our office intranet that ended up having over 60 restaurants listed on it with photos of several dishes from each of them.

  More recently I went on a diet a few years ago and as a way to motivate myself I decided to take a photo of every single thing I ate. This was so I could see the volume of food I was consuming and to make it impossible to cheat when counting calories. You know you tend to forget little things here and there. For me personally this worked great almost immediately it became easier to restrict my food. It made me accountable to those I shared it with and I could see visually in moments what I was consuming.

  I have to be honest though two of my favorite hobbies are photography and food. So to this day I still take photos of interesting food that I find in restaurants or if I cook something special at home it might deserve a photo as well.

  It is a little surprising to see some of the angry comments on here. I know the internet is a rough place but I have honestly never been aware of negative reactions towards photography of food before. I am fairly certain though that this practice is not unique to Japanese woman, but if that is the demographic that we want to address I am afraid I have no idea why they specifically as Japanese woman take photos of food. I suspect it has nothing to do with being Japanese or female.

  Posted in: Why do so many Japanese women take photos of their food at restaurants and post it on Facebook or their blogs?

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