A wellness coach's guide to: photographing farmers market haul

The Pepper Place Farmers Market is one of my most favorite things!

One of the first things I discovered when moving to Birmingham five years ago was our amazing farmers market. 

I fell in love instantly with the vibe- connecting with the farmers who had worked hard to grow the food I would serve at my dinner table- it’s a powerful experience.

One thing that didn’t come instantly to me however was how in the world to take those beautiful photographs of my farmers market haul.

You know the ones I’m talking about. A Beautiful spread of apples next to perfectly ripe autumn squash All brought together by a cascading waterfall of collard greens.

These photos are a great opportunity to highlight the benefits of fresh produce with your clients. When they see beautiful, fresh food it inspires them to learn more about making healthy choices. 

I’m not a fan of making fun of her talking crap about my earlier work.(hello, self-love!) But, as I’ve grown and learned I am able to analyze my older photos and see what I could possibly do to improve them so before I move on to my tips on creating the perfect farmers market Hall photo I’d like to actually analyze a few areas of growth in oen of my earlier photos. My goal with doing this is to encourage you to do the same. I know it can be really frustrating to look at your photos and know something doesn’t feel quite right but not know exactly what it is. That’s an awful feeling. So I hope this little exercise will empower you to overcome that feeling by taking action and analyzing your photo!

This exercise for the old photo will go: 

• 3 compliments of the photo
• 3 critiques
• how I can use that info in my next photo shoot

Let's start with the good! 

1. I adore the vibrant colors in this photo. The white balance is correct, there's not unwanted blue or purple tint. The whites are true white!

2. I really like the texture of the burlap. It brings a "natural" feel to the photo. 

3. I'm happy that the stems of the bok choy are included. They have such a lovely color and add an element of interest to the photo. 

Now, how could we IMPROVE this picture?

1. The photo feels crowded. The elements are all a little too close together and we're missing the white space that helps photos look beautiful. 

2. The red in the berries is a little over saturated. By bringing down the overall "saturation" in the photo just a coule notches, we could get a more natural true to life look. 

3. We need to back it up, back it up! The camera is too close to the subjects. You see that little plant in the top right corner? He looks skewed, which is really distracting. If we pulled the camera back, and then cropped the photo, he would be captured in a way that didn't look skewed. 

How can we use this info for our next photo shoot? 

White space is so important! Make sure that it's a strong piece of every photo you take. 

Check your saturation when you edit your photos. Play around with it until your photos look as true to life as they possibly can. 

When taking "from above" shots, make sure that your camera is far enough away that none of your subjects look skewed. 

Now, let's see those tips in action!  

 Look at all that magificent white space! I mean, just look at it! 

The saturation on this photo is most visible in the purple beans and the yellow of the squash. They look very natural to me, but if the saturation was too high they would look fake or cartoony. Like this image below. 

And lastly, we know that our camera is far away because there is no skewing on any of the subjects. But, just in case you want to know what skewed images look like, I've shared one of my earliest Instagram images below. 

This photo would make so much more sense to the human eye if the camera were backed up a LOT. But, since it's too close we are getting skewing from every single item in the photo. 

I hope this exercise was helpful! Let me know if you try any of the tips I shared today by tagging me over on Instagram @spiffy_eats! 

Want even more tips on editing? Sign up to receive my free training: Editing Bright & Vibrant Food photos!