Playing around with my food photography again Hudson Valley Food Photographer
I’ve been trying to branch out a little bit with my photography work lately. At the end of the day I’m still a portrait artist. That will always be my number one passion, but if I’m going to make a real run at photography then I need to diversify a bit. It’s a hard business out there, and the more avenues I have for making money, the better. Of course it’s not 100% just about money, the areas that I’m branching into are also areas that I love as well.
In a lot of ways I grew up a cook, and at various points in my life I’ve seriously considered going to culinary school. Cooking for a living is probably on par with the level of difficulty as being a photographer. Th
ey both are surprisingly creative fields. Even though photography is certainly easier to see as a creative field, cooking is equally challenging when it comes to coming up with innovative, and creative ways of preparing food. It’s a world that I have a ton of respect for. Chefs work ridiculous hours, usually with little pay, in a blistering hot kitchen.
When I was younger I learned how to cook from my grandmother. Who was not your traditional grandmother. She’d make all these wildly gourmet dishes; homemade pasta with my grandfather, grilled lobster and cous cous with my grandmother. Fresh vegetables from her garden. nasturtium covered salads. All sorts of fun creative stuff. We’d sit around in the summer and watch Julia Childs cooking show. (I actually got to meet and have dinner with Julia one time, but that’s a story for another day). I watched intently how she cooked. Never with measuring cups and perfect amounts of things. Just eyeballing it, and tasting to see how things were going. I think that’s what taught me to be the kind of cook I am today. She always told me, a recipe book is just suggestions, pull stuff from all the recipes you like, and make something you want to make.
That’s how she looked at cooking more like a creative culinary experiment than a rigid set of rules. That’s why neither one of us are bakers. Exact ingredients make me nervous. I’d rather feel like a mad chemist in the kitchen coming up with my own mad concoctions. And if life has taught me anything it’s that how I would like to live my life. Throwing a little bit of caution to the wind, and finding my own path. There’s not a recipe for life. There isn’t a way to add one part of anything you want in your life. You’re not going to be able to measure out the amount of love, or money, or happiness.
Shooting food lately has really reignited my interest in shooting food again. Some of my most interesting gigs have involved working with top chefs, who are typically some of the nicest most interesting people I’ve ever met. And if I’ve learned anything about photography it’s that the more interesting the person is, the more I actually enjoy working with them.
