A chef taking pics? / ¿Un chef tomando fotos?
August 16, 2015A brief story…
When I was a young cook I wanted to “immortalize” my food… Every single dish, name it corn flakes with hershey’s chocolate syrup (the drizzle from the bottle was artistically placed…Of course) or one of the experimental dishes that I used to cook from an advanced cookbook when I was not good enough to make fried eggs.
You name it… To my family and friends annoyance, I was cooking and I wanted an image to make my dish last.
I had my old film camera and I was taking snapshots… You guessed it right, with flash, and I was getting ugly pictures. I decided that it was time for an improvement, and I got a “good camera” so I got my first digital camera… A bridge camera, so there I was…Crappy pictures, but now digital and with a lot of megapixels.
I need a better camera I taught, so I got a Canon DSLR, a Rebel, so, now I was getting same ugly pictures, but with more megapixels, and some “bokeh”, now my terrible pictures had some artistic touch.
I almost gave up, until I started to do some research on lighting, and that’s when my pictures started making sense and justice to the food. It’s ben almost a decade since that moment when I discovered that the light coming from a window was much better than a picture taken with front flash.
I learned that backlight was flattering to the food, I learned that shadows added depth and a lot of good things to an image… It was a new discovery for me, and I still remember how that first picture “properly” taken hooked me into this beautiful profession. Many pictures have passed since that day, and I took many years of experimenting before taking the plunge into professional photography. But it can’t be more rewarding.
It started with food, but then, I discovered that photography in all his different disciplines is a beautiful thing. I love to take portraits, street photography and landscape, but only as a hobby. My professional commitment is only with food.
I hope that you enjoy the reading , and if at any time you want to say hi, I’ll be very happy.
Luis
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Soy un chef con mas de dos décadas de experiencia y con múltiples reconocimientos gastronómicos, sin embargo, en mi afán de preservar las imágenes de obras tan efímeras como lo son los platillos, decidí comenzar a tomar fotografías.
Lamentablemente mis fotos eran malas, así que compré una cámara de mayor capacidad…El resultado: Fotos malas pero con muchos megapixeles. Tras una profunda reflexión, decidí que lo que me hacía falta era una cámara réflex y los mejores lentes que la industria ofrecía… El resultado: Fotos malas, con muchos megapixeles y algo de “bokeh”, eso genero fotos muy malas, muy pesadas pero algo “artísticas”.
En mi frustración, decidí comenzar a estudiar la luz, y ahí fue cuando las cosas tomaron un buen cauce. Hace ya casi 10 años de eso, pero aún recuerdo la satisfacción que me dio mi primer imagen bien captada.
El viaje ha sido largo, pero lleno de sonrisas y satisfacciones.
He trabajado como fotógrafo para restaurantes de Chicago, Guatemala y por supuesto en mi natal Guadalajara .
Soy un apasionado de la fotografía en todas sus disciplinas, el retrato, el paisaje, la fotografía urbana y hasta la de animales, pero a nivel profesional, solo estoy comprometido con la fotografía de alimentos (o bien “de producto” como se le conoce técnicamente).
Espero que disfrutes de este espacio, y sientete con la libertad de escribir una linea para saludarme.
Luis
