Have you ever watched Chef’s table? The story behind every carefully crafted dish is so fascinating. I love to see how different cultures shape a person’s identity and the connection between chefs and local farmers.
Cooking and photography have so much in common. They are both very healing. A lot of passion and skills go into the making of a dish.
If you are just starting out, you are likely to follow recipes. As time goes by, you have more experience, you make your own version to your liking.
What is the most important thing in cooking?
I would say ingredients. If your ingredient is fresh and of good quality, let’s say it’s a freshly caught Alaskan king crab, you got nothing to worry about unless you overcook it!
In photography, the key ingredients are the location and subject. The planning part often gets overlooked. If you pick a beautiful location, with good lighting, then the quality is almost guaranteed.
Can you be spontaneous? Sure! Skilled chefs can turn anything into a gourmet dish.
Cooking style, method, and technique, all depend on your knowledge and ability. You can cook a chicken in so many ways, blanch, roast, deep fried, sous vide, etc. Keeping the bones for broth. The cooking process can be as quick as 3 minutes or up to 3 hours.
In photography, there are different levels of approach too. For example, a landscape sunset shot, 1. you can take quick snapshots with a cellphone, 2. long exposure using GND filter and tripod, 3. exposure blending and focus stacking.
How to bring out the flavor of the dish? Here comes the seasoning. Salt and pepper, aromatics like herbs, spices, ginger, garlic, honey, citrus, mirin, miso, you name it. Professional chefs often throw in a ton of seasoning, and all the flavors balance and complement each other.- the complexity of flavor.
Composition is about establishing a visual hierarchy to guide the viewer’s eye. Editing is about highlighting the parts that you wanted to be seen. Emphases and draw the audience’s attention with brighter colors. The least important part is muted and sometimes hidden with masks.
Editing is essential whether is a slight enhancement or a major transformation. Would you say the chef manipulated flavors? It’s a creative approach. Bad editing can definitely ruin a photo just like too much salt could ruin a dish.
I think understanding the order/procedure and why you are doing it is fairly important. Because then you will know which steps must follow and which steps you can switch based on different situations.
For example, bring the steak to room temperature before cooking, it will sear much better and hence be juicier. In fact, it can apply to all kinds of meat, when you come to think of it.
It’s like setting a 5-second self-timer on the camera when taking pictures in low light situations, so when you press the shutter button, it won’t cause the camera to shake. When you come to think about it, it can be useful for any type of low-light low exposure shots, e.g. Milky Way and moon photography.
The last thing I want to touch on is the gear. Camera, lens and tripod are like the cooking equipment, pots and pans, knives, and chopping board.
How would you rate the importance of gear? Everyone wants a cast iron pan. Will you be happier cooking with it? Is it functional or emotional? How often do you actually use it? I will leave that to you to decide.
If you cook the same dish for a month, you won’t be so precise with the measurements and checking on the recipe every time. It comes naturally to you such as substituting ingredients freely, making use of residual heat.
If you practice photography long enough, you know which exposure settings/combination work and how to improvise. You will be more relaxed.
People often say “It is the photographer, not the camera.” Because we are the one who make the decision.
Hope you enjoyed reading. I have had this analogy in mind for quite a while. I probably watch too many cooking shows.
Cheers.