Well. If you follow the world of Veg, you've probably heard. The very popular blog Quarrygirl
blew it wide open yesterday, after all. It seems that the widely circulated VegNews Magazine has been lying to us all. In a nutshell, instead of actually taking photographs of genuine vegan food, they've been using stock photos of meat, dairy, and eggs and telling us (or at least implying) that these images are of vegan delicacies.
Sure, we understand that professional photography is expensive, and that running a magazine is expensive. We *also* understand, though, that there are many professional vegan photographers who would be more than happy to work with VegNews, as was described in detail in
this blog post from Vegan Good Things...
One would think that after getting called out on something like this, a business would be repentent. Alas. In a
statement issued in reply to the accusation, they "explained" that they only do this sometimes, that running a magazine is expensive... bla, bla, bla. Is that really an excuse to photoshop the bones out of a slab of ribs? I'm voting no, and I'm not the only one. The consensus in much of the community seems to be, "BLEGH."
We do hope that this onslaught of negative feedback will open VegNews' eyes and ultimately make them change their ways. Vegan photographers out there, get in touch! Let them know that they have options other than to use meaty stock photos! We know what the problem is; now let's find a solution, eh?
So once again there's lots of negativity in the vegan online universe. We've all been looking at pics of animal flesh and thinking it was good and pure vegan food! ACK!! But let's think about this: there are hundreds (really probably even thousands) of vegans all over the world who not only make utterly fabulous vegan foodstuffs, but ALSO take stunningly gorgeous pictures of it!
So here's what we're proposing. Let's combat this flurry of negativity and upset zooming around the internets. Let's celebrate vegan food by sharing some of these mouth-watering pictures with each other and with the world! Right here on the Vegan Etsy Team blog, we'll be posting photos from team members of real vegan food made by vegans.
Wanna join in? Leave a comment with a link to your blog, flickr, facebook, etc. where you keep all your gorgeous vegan food p*rn pics - we'll be happy to share those too! (WITH full credit, of course!)
So let's kick it off.
Here's a pic I took a while back of some real live vegan hazelnut frangelico fudge. Is it a novice pic? Sure. But personally, I think it looks good enough to eat. :)