Feeding My Passion

My photojournalism class has an assignment to take at least one photo a day for the next 30 days. The primary purpose of this, as the phrase goes, is it to “just do it.” The benefits of it are many, and like exercising outside every day, you get more out of it than just fresh air. First, getting in the habit of making pictures is very important, and frequent practice yields a plethora of benefits, technical and otherwise. As the late yoga master Sri K. Pattabi Jois said, “Do your practice and all is coming.”

I made this photo from the kitchen in the Branding Iron, a restaurant that’s been in Merced for more than 52 years. When I was a kid growing up in Merced, it was the best place in town (probably still is) and when my grandfather gave me a choice of any place in town when I turned 9, I chose The Branding Iron.

Julio Garza, who’s worked at The Branding Iron for 5 years, gets ready for Tuesday’s dinner service. He starts the grill and fryers, warms up sauces, sets up the pantry and sauté stations, pre-decorates plates, and fries corn tortillas to garnish the restaurant’s gazpacho before the rest of the other kitchen staff gets there. Once the orders start rolling in, he’ll work the grill or sauté station.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 10:00 pm and is filed under 30 Days, Photoj Class. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.