hautecuisine

Taking a quick snapshot of your meal at restaurants has become a widespread pre-meal ritual in recent years. People often like to keep a memento of the food they eat, and perhaps share that image with others online as well.

But if you're a foodie blogger and/or photographer in Germany, you might want to think twice the next time you pull out your camera: your simple photo could constitute copyright infringement.

One of the hottest food photographers on Instagram in the past couple of months is an anonymous user who goes by the name Chef Jacques LaMerde. It's not the quality of the photos that's attracting attention, but rather the subject matter. Each of the shots shows cheap junk food arranged to look like the artistic plates found at high-end restaurants.