Too many photo sites? + recipe links 10-23-08

by Giff on October 23, 2008

food photo sites

Foodgawker, TasteSpotting, and Photograzing (Serious Eats) — three food photo sites that people flock to. They are similar, and you often see the same pictures across all three.

These sites are a fun place to discover interesting posts and drool on your keyboard (careful with that). With the right photo, they can also be great traffic generators for a blog. A number of bloggers are taking the approach of posting their pictures on all three, but since time is perpetually limited, I would prefer to pick one.

In terms of site speed, they all seem comparable, and all seem to be relatively well-built. I doubt I will have time to get a sense for relative moderation / posting speed. Serious Eats has a large following, but I do not know how much of their traffic is also using Photograzing. According to Compete.com (not the definitive word by any means), Foodgawker has a slight lead now over Tastespotting.

Unfortunately, all of them insist on cropping images to a square. Sure, it makes the page layout more beautiful, but my camera does not take square pictures, and that is not how I frame my shots. I notice that Etsy’s home page has a consistent landscape orientation for displayed images. I would love one of them to differentiate by embracing the non-square world.

So… which one do you prefer?

Recipe Links
I haven’t had time in a while to post my “wannamakes”, the amusing term someone applied to recipes you see and want to save for the future, so here is my batch since the last post (not including a few we already made and enjoyed):

Speaking of links, we enjoyed playing a part in Foodbuzz’s 24, 24, 24 blog event, and they just created a neat little video now up on YouTube.

And I shall end the post, since it gave me a good chuckle, with a link to The Haphazard Gourmet Girls’ alternative spelling/definitions for “locavore”.

  • Stacey Snacks

    Giff,
    I don’t look at photograzing or tastespotting anymore. They are too addictive, and show too many pics of sweet desserts.
    Also they make me feel inadequate about my own food photography!

    I am planning on making Zen Chef’s gruyere olive loaf. I have a French cookbook with a similar recipe.
    Too many recipes….too little time.

  • HoneyB

    I post to both Tastespotting and FoodGawker. It really doesn’t take that much time. I have noticed that sometimes one place will take a photo that the other won’t – so I continue to post to both.

  • Peter M

    That”s a nice roster of bookmarked dishes…I hope you get around to enjoying them all.

  • Patsyk

    Like Honeyb, I post to both tastespotting and foodgawker. Sometimes both sites will take a picture, other times only one site will take it. I’ve never gone on to photgrazing or heard of it before your post here.

  • kat

    I post to all three & have actually started taking photos in order to crop them to a square for this purpose. Here's my two cents on them…
    Photograzing – They tend to take almost every picture I submit but they take longest to get it up. I get the least amount of hits from them unless I make the picture of the day on the Serious Eats page.
    Foodgawker – They tend to take more of my pictures than Tastespotting. They are catching up to Tastespotting for the amount of hits I get if something is posted.
    Tastespotting – They seem to be quite picky about which pictures they take. I can't quite figure it out as the other two will take something & they will reject it. Still when they put one up I do get a lot of hits.

  • biz319

    Thanks for all your recipe recommendations. There is not enough time to make everything that is on my list, but I never hesitate to add more!

    Thanks.

  • LunaCafe

    Thanks for mentioning LunaCafe Otherwordly Mac & Cheese. I hope you do try the recipe! :-)

    On the EyeCandy front, I really appreciate how generous and helpful Sarah is at TasteSpotting. On occasion, after a shot receives a rejection, I shoot it again and then the second try is successful. She is always gracious.

    Thus far for LunaCafe, the results from having a shot pictured on TasteSpotting versus either PhotoGrazing or FoodGawker is at least 10 to 1.

  • Giff

    Thanks for all the comments folks – good to get your perspective!