Watch practically any cooking show for long enough and you will eventually see a shot of the chef tossing a big pinch of seasoning into the pan with a wave-like flourish. While the performance and drama aren't strictly required, there are some very good reasons for spicing and seasoning dishes from just above the pan.
First of all, let me clarify: you don't need to stand on a chair to sprinkle spices from on high. A foot or so above the cooking surface will do it. You can use your fingers or a measuring scoop, whichever you feel most comfortable with.
As you add the seasonings from this height, they disperse over the dish and cover the food more evenly than if you just dropped a scoop in the middle. This also means that you don't need to stir the dish as much to spread the seasonings, which in turn means that there's less risk of damaging delicate meats and vegetables.
Sprinkling from above is also helpful when learning to season dishes without recipes. You can see how much spice is settling over the surface and draw conclusions about how well-seasoned any given bite of the dish will be.
Do you ever use this chef's trick?
Related: From Ocean to Box: How Sea Salt is Harvested
(Image: Evgeny Litvinov/Shutterstock)
5 Things Paris Taught Me About Travel
Recipe: Ham, Cheddar & Chive Egg Bakes
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Bacsac Bacsquare 04...
Apartment Therapy's Sofa Shopping Guide
Nikki’s Sweet and Cheery Print Studio
Yes, adding dry flavors from a high-enough point that you can view how they're distributing in the pan makes sense. The "chefs" who sprinkle from 2 FEET above the dish are doing what we lovingly refer to as "ego droppings".
Just a comment. TV food shows generally over-salt and season so that you can actually see the stuff on camera and for the flair shot. Even Julia did this and admitted it in interviews (but I don't have time to find a link). I hate it when chefs say, 'ahalfa teaspoon' and they proceed to sprinkle a tablespoon and other measuring gaffes (a quarter cup of oil for a tablespoon), gigantic pinches of whatever. It's particularly funny when they do it into a measuring cup looking at the camera, and it's obviously not what they said.
Justin Wilson (who originally brought Cajun to national attention) was the only TV chef whose unmeasured measures were actually the right amount as he often demonstrated. Watch a few of his shows to see what real measures actually look like on TV. Sarah Moulton - who worked on Julia Child's set - is particularly aware of this and seldom doesn't measure on camera and her 'ego droppings' are noticeably smaller than most. Free hand unmeasured seasonings lead to oversalting, etc.
Everyone should do what Justin Wilson did, measure into your hand once you understand how much area a given measure covers.
...there's another way to do it? I figured this out when I was six.
How else could you season a dish? From below? FROM WITHIN??
Huh? Same question as above. From sideways? Curveball?
It's a chef's trick? I thought it was just common sense.
Uh-oh! I'm a chef and I didn't know it!
I think, more than measuring, a cook should be TASTING the food they're making. Who cares what the recipe said if you don't like it?
If you dump a teaspoon of something in the middle of the pan you're going to have to futz with it to get it properly mixed. I thought everybody did the sprinkle thing.
All your comments put a smile on my face today. and yes I sprinkle from high above, just like the chefs. Been doing that for years.
Not only do I sprinkle from on high like the TV chefs, I also say BAM in my head occasionally.
This is how I have always seasoned. What other way is there to do it?