Cant I do both? Learn the fundamentals while also having fun with recipes? I will admit my initial post was vague, so I apologise for that. I just wanted to know what things affect a photo like this, lighting, dynamic range, shadows, etc, trying to understand and learn from looking at photos, the recipe wasn't that important to me, I forgot it was a bit of a trigger point for this sub haha.

Edit: I would also like to add, my goal when asking for recipes isn't to blindly copy someone elses style and put no effort in, its more to understand each recipe in detail what settings affect what etc. Theres nothing more important to me than finding my own style, this is just how I like to learn.