More than six in 10 office workers in the US eat at their desks. They chow down while making calls, sitting in meetings, and, yes, even writing the story you're reading right now. It's sad.
Brian Finke celebrates the sadness in his deadpan series Desktop Dining. Any one of the 30 people in his stark photos could be you, utterly failing to maintain a healthy work-life balance. A woman clacks away at her keyboard, a slice of pepperoni pizza dangling from her mouth. A man devours a burrito while coding. One particularly efficient fellow uses his laptop as a tray. "This story allowed for wonderfully awkward photographs," Finke says.
He shot the series in January for the The New York Times Magazine. Finke isn't an office drone---though he has been known to scarf down a burger in the car before a shoot---and was curious to see the mealtime melancholy.
Finke visited 10 companies in California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York, roaming around with an assistant as people munched and slurped. He used two bright off-camera flashes to catch people mid-bite. “There’s nothing subtle about when I take pictures,” he says. “I like the feeling of pictures being in your face.” A few people got self-conscious, but others threw themselves into the role, like the CNBC writer who devoured a basket of ribs and licked his fingers clean. “I was like, ‘Ooo, this is wonderful,’” Finke says. “It felt nice that he was willing to put himself out there."
His technique perfectly captures the hunched posture, blank stare, and inevitable mess of the desktop epicurean. Wrappers litter workstations, keyboard glisten with grease, and paper plates replace dinnerware because who has time to wash that stuff? Everyone looks frantic, frazzled, and, well, sad.
Finke insists he isn't passing judgement, but he doesn't have to. The images do so on their own. If Desktop Dining doesn’t inspire you to step away from your desk and eat like a civilized person, nothing will. As for me, I'm logging off to finish my sandwich.
