"today’s restaurant is theatre on a grand scale"

- marian burros

By 默默富酷

July 4^th, 2022

foreward

when covid hit, i didn't know i would take an extended hiatus from making images and stories - but i did. i could not travel internationally to indulge my curiosity into cultures and communities i am not familiar with. and i explored locally - the streets were empty and human interactions moved online. everyone was masked and they avoided conversations.

i removed the batteries from my main camera and kept it in the dry-box, except for a point and shoot. the main camera is still in the dry box and i am not sure if it can be powered on.

during the pandemic, social interactions were limited. it was during this period that i started to have more social meals, within the prescribed limits the dear government allowed. and i brought my camera to all social meals - with the excuse of making food photos but in fact to indulge myself of the occasional image making of people and scenes.

i even created a meme food ig just to record "food images" so my food mates do not think i am some voyeur stealing scenes of people during meals. that food ig will be dormant (or at least updated very irregularly) and i will be back at my usual ig.

i was slowly inducted into the world of foodies. i do not really like that term as many of these taste-masters i know are not food fad chasers - they just enjoy company and good food and/or drinks.

such dining sessions allowed me to make the kind of images i love, though the moments are rare due to space and etiquette constraints present in a dine-in setting.

while meals allowed me to make images, the extended covid has robbed my muscle memory and sadly, my interest in making images. i will start to travel again, and start to be curious about culture and communities again, and perhaps make images to tell their stories again.

before that happens, here are some images from this period of over-eating. each image is almost the equivalent of 16,000 calories.

stolen scenes

ig links of the dining locations in image click-through.

https://www.instagram.com/ashino_at_chijmes_/

https://www.instagram.com/anju_singapore/

"today’s restaurant is theatre on a grand scale"

https://www.instagram.com/lesamisrestaurant/

https://www.instagram.com/metasingapore/

https://www.instagram.com/kaiyakitorisg/

serendipty

ig links of the dining locations in image click-through.

https://www.instagram.com/ginzasushiichisingapore/

portrait(s)

i love making portraits of people. a portrait can tell a lot about a person - the confidence, openness and is a test of a person's impression of me (the more relaxed he/she is, the more he/she trusts me).

i wished i had more opportunities to make portraits of the chefs - something i didn't ask because i didn't want to disrupt their service flow. only one image which i managed to make was sushi master sato-san as he was walking us out after a meal - and there was good light and a garden. i asked for 30 seconds of his time for this image.

i also wished i would have taken portraits of my dining mates but i never asked, on the assumption that they wanted the privacy.

"fooding" observations

plagued with the curse of a flaneur, i observed and processed a lot during meals - how chefs treated their sous or service team, i listened to conversations of fellow diners (friends and strangers alike) and form impressions (may not be accurate at times, depending on my level of intoxication), i observed interactions and gestures - many these observations are personal opinions and not suitable for public (or private) consumption. :)

some general milder observations that i find interesting

no one asks the chef if it is ok to make photos. i used to, but i stopped too. :(
the lightbox is now a standard accessory for the serious foodie
a photo before a bite is now the social norm - "camera(s) eats first"
social media posts about what one is eating is almost real-time. sometimes, this bugs me.
everyone is interested in the food origins but few are interested in the backstory of the chef.
dining alone is still uncommon.
drinking alone is even more uncommon.

p.s. someone asked me if it is possible to make black and white food photos and look tasty. i am not sure, but the octopus leg sushi on the cover image is making me hungry again.