YES CHEF! is a visual exploration of food production in a professional kitchen, from raw ingredients to the final front-of-house dish. I made half a dozen visits of up-to five-hour periods shooting at Granger & Co. Notting Hill, London.
After watching my friend Benjamin, a chef, at work I became fascinated with how the process of creating the final dish from raw ingredients is similar to the creative process in my work as a photographer and the images I compose.
Taking raw ingredients and using his skills and utensils, the chef creates a composition on a plate, which is similar to the work of a photographer creating a composition. Unlike my work in large production commercial photography however, the chef uses straightforward basic techniques and most importantly his hands. There is no fanciful equipment or Photoshop to aid him in creating his final composition.
As a photographer creating my own compositions I wanted to return back to using the basics of my skill and compose photos relying on my visual intelligence, as the chef does, without the aid of modern commercial photography techniques.
I wanted to photograph the action of a professional kitchen and document the different stages of food preparation. Before shooting a frame I spent time in the kitchen observing the journey of the food preparation and observing the flow of the production of the final dishes. This gave me an idea of the specific images I wanted to capture and also allowed me to blend into the environment when I did start shooting.
After deciding I wanted to capture natural and true images, I resolved that I would not crop images, I would stay within a single focal length and I would use available light. My creative decisions and tools would be in the moment, as reactive, spontaneous and self-disciplined as the chef and without any second chances or post rationalisation to alter the image.
When I first entered the kitchen I was struck by how hectic and frantic it appeared and wondered how a final finished product could be created out of this apparent chaos. However as I spent more time in the kitchen I began to see that the process was very ordered, and I wanted to show this order in my final imagery. Again, I found this very much similar to the creative process of photography.
My photographs document all aspects of the food preparation process from raw ingredients to the final composition. The images capture the people, the environment, the textures, hues and rhythm of the kitchen, including a discovery of the visual language the hands present. The transformative process where by ingredients are selected, prepped, combined and presented forms a narrative, ever repeated, within the work.
The final images selected for this book capture the creative process in a professional kitchen illustrating the journey ingredients have taken before being served at the front of house.
YES CHEF! was a phrase repeated over and over within the rhythm of the kitchen, an
essential beat of the language of the brigade, a fitting title for this collection of images.
The following images are a selection from the project which make up a book that I plan to self publish.
