photography

Golden Glen

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Vic and Judythe farm store

Back in October I went out to interview the Jensen family at Golden Glen Creamery for the Nov/Dec issue of Grow Northwest magazine. You can read the original article here, but I thought it would be fun to post some of the other photos I took.

the cheese roomthe cheese room

The Jensens don’t actually own the creamery any more, but the family is still very much involved in running the place. All the folks I talked to were exceedingly proud of their milk, the quality of their cheese, and their rather snazzy cheese room. When Vic opened the door and let me peek in, a vast waft of garlic hit me in the face from the fresh wheels of dill-garlic cheese resting on the racks. If you’ve ever had that stuff as fresh cheese curds, you may agree with me that it’s one of the more addictive dairy products out there. I also got a glimpse of the aging room, which happened to be a trailer parked behind the farm store.

I did not get to meet any cows. I was informed that they were off being milked (something they spend quite a bit of their day at). No cheese samples, either. But  I got to have a large dog lean against my legs while I took notes, and the view from the farm was nice.

view from the farm

I used my trip out to the dairy as an excuse to drive around on the Skagit flats at dawn and take pictures of the autumn fields in the morning mist.

misty farm

misty barn

farm road

sunrise through fog

layers

view from Persons Road

(There are, by the way, calendars of my photographs for sale over at Qoop. Just thought I’d mention it.)

food photography

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beetartichoke #3

For the last two months I’ve been taking a course at PCNW in studio lighting. Except for the portrait assignment, we’ve been able to choose our own subjects, so I’ve mostly been going into the studio with a bag of produce. Vegetables sit still and don’t twitch while you’re moving lights around.

lemons

It’s been a lot of fun, and great to see how studio light can mimic daylight or look very different depending how you use it. I’ve come up with a few images that I really like while doing homework for this class.

squash in hard lightmoody citrus

Some of them, like the squash and citrus shots above, are framed and hanging up at Chuckanut Brewery in Bellingham. They’ll be there through March 19th if you want to stop by and take a look, or you can meet me on Wednesday the 9th when I go in for “Art Night”. Let’s drink beer and talk about photography!

in the light

persimmon

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persimmon

My parents often buy persimmons in the winter, which for some reason we never do. I took advantage of the opportunity to shoot a few images of this one. I love both the color of the fruit and the texture of the sepals, making it hard to decide whether I like it better in color or black and white. Which do you prefer?

persimmon

final fruits

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tomatillos

Since the weather has gotten cold I’ve pretty much given up on my remaining outdoor vegetables. The tomato vines have wilted, I pulled out the runner beans, and the last few zucchini are melting into the ground. The tomatillo plants continued to fruit despite everything, although I was feeling a bit burned out on actually eating them. I decided to pick all the remaining fruits a few weeks ago and keep them in a bowl on the counter, just for decor. I adore the texture of these tomatillos, and the mix of jewel tones as some turn purple and others remain brilliant green.

Yesterday I finally threw them into the compost, but took one last picture in the soft afternoon light. I had just finished weaving a teal wool scarf for the upcoming Rexville art show, so I used that as a color backdrop for the tomatillos. I like the resulting contrast.

twin pears

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Asian pears

A few nights ago some dinner guests arrived supplied with ice wine, goat cheese and four of the biggest Asian pears I’d ever seen. We managed to eat two pears between the six of us, but there were still two left. On Friday I was mucking around with the camera, fruit and various backdrops for an assignment, so I decided to do some fruit portraits.

trio

Admittedly those apples are a bit small, but look at the size of that pear! And I adore the texture of its skin.

belly

[Last year for NaBloPoMo I ran food-related comics on Sundays, but I haven’t been able to find many good new ones, so instead I thought I might show some of my food photography projects that don’t otherwise fit into food posts – JT]