A year ago this week, I had an incredible weekend-long experience on the beautiful Whidbey Island in Washington state. It was a farm-to-table photography workshop (!!!) led by a lovely food photographer from Seattle, Clare Barboza. The fact that it's taken me twelve months to post about something so wonderful should give you a little insight into how I'm keeping up in my personal life these days.
I attended the workshop with Granny A, and together we devoured every aspect of the experience. We arrived on a Thursday night to a lovely rental house at the end of long private road. All together, we were ten students, plus Clare, her husband and brother. Most of us had traveled from neighboring states, one woman had flown in from Taiwan, a professional wedding photographer had traveled down from Canada. We all shared rooms and meals, and took most of our down time together in the very open living and kitchen space. Everyone was great!
On our first day, we traveled to two different family-run farms where we were granted access to all areas and spent several hours walking around, honing our skills. At some point, in one of those fields, a light went off in my head (I light I'd been trying to throw for the better part of ten years) and I finally, (FINALLY!) I wrapped my head around *aperture* and *f-stop* and all that mind-blowingly complicated camera crap I've never seemed to grasp. (Thank you, Universe!!!) Later in the afternoon, back at the house, we set-up shop in a neighboring barn flooded with natural light. Individually, we plated packaged desserts and snacks on Clare's collection of dishes, incorporating a variety of textiles and textures for backdrops, and snapped away.
Our second day started out at the local farmer's market where we actually got to see and photograph the produce stands of the farms we'd visited the day before. Now I don't know about you, but that rates a *10* on my too-cool-for-school scale. We then returned to the house for a second session in food styling before our final presentation where we each shared and discussed our ten favorite shots from the weekend. It was nothing short of this suburban homesteader's dream weekend.
To learn more about Clare's workshops click here.
To see Clare's beautiful farm photography click here.
Meet three of my all-time favorite people: Mr. Noodle, Miss Frijoles and The 8 year old.
