Spotlight on the photography of Eric I. Your Favorite Pics member of the week June 25, 2007.

    It is a joy and pleasure to feature the photography of Eric I. this week. It's been my experience that creative people tend to express themselves in more than one modality. Painters can dance, poet's can sing and in Eric's case, chef's can create beautiful food and photos.  I had a veritable feast of photos to choose from. It was no easy task selecting a handful of photos from Eric's 28 pages of delectable images in his content.  I invite you browse through them at sgmchef.gather.com.

    Given the usual Gather glitches I decided to post less photos but divide them into two articles. One today and one next Monday. Be sure to check back next week for a second batch of Eric's photos!

There will be none of my usual " before and after" photo makeovers this week. I think the quality of Eric's work speaks for itself as does the following engaging bio. 

Eric in Iraq

    "For as long as I can remember there was always a camera involved in family events. Birthdays, vacation trips, holiday gatherings all had the ever-present camera and Blue Dot flashes! Yes I remember burning my hands on the things that blinded all of us! Dad would always set up the screen for these get-togethers and have a slide show. It was always fun for us to munch Popcorn and have some fruit salad as we looked at images of days gone by. I thought the whole idea was pretty neat at the time! I was able to see familiar faces, including mine, and familiar places that we went to, projected onto a big screen!

    As I got older and had to delve into the family bookcase to look at the encyclopedias we had to do my homework, I noticed a couple of big books that had photographs in them. Some were from Time magazine and some were about WWII. As I flipped through and asked Dad some questions about the images, he told me a little more about his younger days and photography. He was working for the Minneapolis Tribune, as a photoengraver, and he had climbed up a burned out hotel and got the image into the paper. He also told me about what an idiot he was to climb an unstable building in subzero weather to get it!

    By the time I was fourteen I wanted a camera of my own and I found a used Pentax Spotmatic IIa, with a Takamur lens, no less, at a local camera shop. Dad offered to pay half, as that is how it was done in our family. If you wanted something special that cost a lot of money, you had to work for it! My first paying gig was from one of the rich kids on the wrestling team that wanted me to take pictures of him at the wrestling meets at school. He paid for the film and developing and gave me ten bucks for each session too! I ended up having a couple of those photos in the yearbook as well as one I took of some Cheerleaders! Imagine that!

    Then I decided I wanted a darkroom again, Dad offered to pay half and so I got an enlarger for our little basement darkroom. It was fun to develop and print the black and white images right in our own home! I thought it was pretty cool!

    My attention went towards my love of cooking though, and I continued photography as a hobby. When I joined the military, I bought myself a new camera, the Konica FS1. The majority of the images I post were taken on this camera. When I finally got stationed to Germany, I was shooting about three rolls a week for the first year I was there and quickly learned that I could not afford to pay for the film and for the full processing. I decided to buy the film, get it developed and just have contact prints made. Funny thing is, I am seeing the pictures that I have been posting for the first time, full-size, since I took them! All I have been able to see is the 1-inch by 1½-inch size, and I don t own a loupe either! I purchased a scanner when I got here to Virginia and have been scanning and posting ever since!

    My Father, my hero, served in WWII and so on day 117 of the Iran hostage crisis, I enlisted in the Army as a cook! I thought I would be heading for the sandbox a lot sooner than I did! After completing my basic training, I headed for the home of Army Food Service at Fort Lee, Virginia. My cooking skills got the attention of my instructors and resulted in my first assignment in the Chairman of the Joint Chief s Dining Room, at the Pentagon! As a private, it was very unusual for selection to serve in a position reserved for a Sergeant, but I won over the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) with my description of how I prepare Veal Oscar.

            During this time I also competed in culinary competitions at Fort Lee and earned 9 Gold Medals, a couple each of Silver and Bronze and a trophy for- Best in Show- for my pulled sugar centerpieces, vegetable carving and tallow sculpture. During this time I also attained Distinguished Honor Graduate at the Advanced Non-Commissioned Officers Course, so as to not neglect my primary function as a Soldier. I stayed at the Pentagon for 11 years and served four Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The last of which was serving General Colin Powell through the end of the first Gulf War. Since General Powell often stayed overnight in his office at the Pentagon, we were always there to provide whatever he might want, whenever he might want it!

    Next chapter, off to Europe! Once I found out that the Army would pay me to live in Europe, I was gone! First stop Stuttgart Germany, where I ran the U.S. European Command, General Officer s Mess for about two years when the opportunity I had waited for arrived! I was asked to interview to be the Chef at the residence of the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe (SACEUR), in MonsBelgium ! When I arrived at Chateau Gendebien, the 22-acre compound I was blown away! I had worked at the Chairman s residence on Ft Meyer, but this was a 22,000-foot Chateau.

    I stayed in that job through the Bosnian Campaign, often working around the clock as General Clark would not go to sleep until ALL aircraft on bombing runs were safely back at their bases. We had 4-star generals from several countries showing up after midnight and General Clark insisted that we would feed and provide for any visitor to the Chateau, regardless of rank! What a guy! Cooking at the Chateau was a great challenge because most of the visitors were acutely aware that the SACEUR, being the NATO Commander, he had control of their collective military might! So when the Kings, Queens, and various Heads of State would visit, I was under the assumption that these folks would normally eat pretty darn well on a daily basis! So I always had to have my A game with no margin of error. If a Head of State visits the US, he is not hosted by the military; he is hosted at the white house.

While working at the Chateau I was selected for the rank of Sergeant Major (SGM), the highest enlisted rank and went to the Sergeant's Major Academy and returned to Europe as the Food Advisor for the United States Fifth Corps, better known as V Corps. It was in this capacity that I deployed to Iraq and was the first to be in charge of all food service operations for all of Iraq. This was of course before, during and after the invasion. This was no longer food service; this was pure logistics! Feeding three meals a day to160,000 Soldiers spread out over an area the size of California and in a HOSTILE environment to boot! This was really my greatest challenge.

    So now I am back where it all started, at Fort Lee, Virginia, about to retire from a wonderful military career!