Omni Chefs - The Richards Group

Cooking has never been something I have been good at, let alone remotely interested in. There was always so much chaos and confusion that came to my mind when I thought about being in the kitchen. Do I have this ingredient, where is this utensil, are the dished I need clean, what am I even making? 

I grew up in a family of people that knew how to cook. They knew just by tasting or smelling what else was needed to make random ingredients come together into something delicious. I always used this as a bit of a crutch, because if someone else was cooking for me that was great then why would I spend the time to do something that I am terrible at? I mean, a few weeks ago I messed up a box of macaroni and cheese. Yes, the one in the blue box. 

I love to eat, and I love good food, but I have never had that interest in doing it myself. 

Luckily, after I grew up and out of the house I found this girl that loves to cook, she loves to make her own pasta and everything she makes is simply perfect in my mind. So again, I find myself not having any drive or motivation to learn the art of cooking. 

However, this past week I was on a job down in San Antonio with two of my incredibly talented friends to document the executive chefs from Omni hotels learn to cook Chilean food. I looked at this as a job rather than an incredible experience. I got to follow some incredibly passionate and talented chefs from all over the country and see how they make a living. I quickly learned that cooking wasn’t something to be afraid of, rather it was another form of art that I could find a release in. It was so incredible to see how every single detail over an hour came together to be this beautiful plate of food, that itself looked like a piece of art. 

I, by no means, plan on becoming a chef (remember the macaroni incident?) but I do hope to explore my new found respect for the art of cooking.

In this series of photographs, I wanted to show these chefs the way that my vivid imagination saw them- as Mad Scientists. I saw these chefs running around looking for what they needed then paying such close attention to their creation. To convey this thought of Mad Scientists, I knew it had to be dark but with extreme highlights. In my mind, a scene from Frankenstein comes to mind when the scientist is running around his laboratory and the lighting strikes and creates the only real light in the room.