The Los Angeles Times has a story written by staffer Rene Lynch about UCLA Anderson alumnae Sarah Gim ('03) and her blog Tastespotting. Writes Lynch:
"Sarah Gim certainly didn't invent food porn. But she's certainly perfected it."
When we first met Sarah, she was working in business development for the UCLA Anderson Forecast, posting on Chowhound and had just started her first food blog The Delicious Life. According to the Times article, Gim started Tastespotting with a partner in 2007 (the pair have since parted ways), with food photos taken by Gim and a group of her friends. Today, the site features food porn ... (ahem) ... food photos submitted by Gim's army of readers and most of Gim's work involves selecting which photos will make it to the site.
Her dog, a Chihuahua named Daisy, scampers about as Gim clicks through a morning's worth of submissions, the equivalent of flipping through 25 cookbooks — or more — each day. "I just don't know. Let me think about it. I'll come back to it," she says of one photo. She does this throughout the morning, repeatedly circling back to images that fall into a gray area — not perfect, but not bad either. "This is really hard. I don't like to say no. My preference is to say yes."
The photography on the site evidences the care with which Gim makes her selections. There are some guidelines (high quality images, the link beyond the photo must be interesting, a caption is required), but anyone may make a submssion. Both the L.A. Times and the site's submission guidelines stress the subjectivity involved. Gim says: "It would be easy to approve everything, but that kind of defeats the whole purpose.
According to the article, Gim works on ad-supported site full-time. She will be appearing at the Camp BlogAway bootcamp for food bloggers later this month. Alas, the event appears sold out.
Comments