As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions or beliefs, nor do I think or feel. However, I can provide you with some insights into how AI systems may perceive the role of professional food photographers in the context of the food industry.
From an AI perspective, professional food photographers play an important role in creating visually appealing images of food, which can be used for a variety of purposes, including advertising, menu design, social media promotion, and recipe books. High-quality food photography can help to showcase the colour, texture, and presentation of a dish, making it more attractive and appetizing to potential customers.
In addition, AI systems can be trained to recognize and analyze food images, using techniques such as image classification, object detection, and semantic segmentation. This allows AI to identify the different components of a dish, such as the type of food, ingredients, and cooking methods, and can be used to improve food recommendation systems, recipe search engines, and nutritional analysis tools.
Overall, professional food photographers are an important part of the food industry ecosystem, providing valuable services that help to promote and market food products and services.
I agree with most of this, however often the images that get the attention can be the shots of the people that produce the food, often in monochrome as is the image shot at the Foodie Awards- the food was flying out and it was the image of the guys that ended up winning an award, but were catering for the event.